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THE KW BEGINNER’S GUIDE 2016
K I T E B O A R D I N G I S A N A W E S O M E , C A P T I V A T I N G A N D A L L - C O N S U M I N G S P O R T, BUT IT’S NOT AN ACTIVITY YOU SHOULD JUST GO AND ATTEMPT ON YOUR OWN WITHOUT GATHERING SOME PRIOR INFORMATION AND TUITION. THE AIM OF T H I S G U I D E I S T O G I V E Y O U A B A S I C U N D E R S T A N D I N G O F T H E S P O R T, A N I D E A OF WHAT EQUIPMENT YOU MIGHT NEED AND TO HELP YOU PLAN YOUR FIRST S T E P S I N T H E S P O R T. R E A D O N T O G E T R A D Q U I C K E R . . . WORDS > MATT PEARCE / WIND ILLUSTRATIONS COURTESY BKSA
GETTING STARTED Thanks to modern equipment’s improved ease-of-use and a wide spread of schools around the world, kiteboarding is now a relatively safe sport in comparison to its early days in the early 2000s. However, attaching yourself to a huge kite carries risk and makes getting lessons essential to ensure safe progress in the sport. Your instructor will teach you how to safely control a kite, explaining in detail how the equipment works, how to selfrescue should you ever need to and the various safe practices that you’ll carry forward once you start kiting on your own. The good news is that your initial learning curve will be a lot faster with an instructor on hand, making everything much
more enjoyable, meaning you’ll be on the water and riding independently much quicker! Most kite schools run courses that are spread across three days. Although the level of success you’ll enjoy is usually dependent on the wind, the instructor’s aim is to get you to a point where you can independently rig up and de-rig a kite, relaunch it if you crash it in the water, pack it down should you need to and, hopefully, get up on a board and ride. You might not quite be at the point where you can ride upwind or complete transitions and turns at the end of your course, but you’ll have the basics nailed, you’ll understand your independence and will hopefully be ready to continue your progression unsupervised and safely.
Pretty soon you’ll be up and riding in confidence and having a blast! Photo: Andy Gratwick / BKSA
CHOOSING GEAR HELMETS
Unlike in snowboarding and skiing, where wearing a helmet is generally the done thing, it seems that not many kiters bother to wear a ‘lid’. However, it should go without saying that they are essential when you’re learning or improving. You can buy wakeboard and kiteboarding specific helmets, but a basic skate helmet can do the job as well. Just make sure it fits properly, isn’t too tight and won’t rock forward and restrict your vision when you’re body dragging or looking up at your kite. Your kite school will provide you with a helmet if you don’t have one.
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Marie-Lou Fourre putting the toeside rail to good use Photo – Andre Magarao / CrazyFly
HARNESSES There are two types of harness - seat and the waist. Again, your kite school will provide you with an appropriate and safe harness for learning. Seat harnesses are often favoured by kite schools for beginner kiters as they pull your hips forward into a good riding position and they and can’t slide up your body. As you progress you’ll find yourself needing more mobility in your upper body and needing to twist more in the harness – which is when you might prefer a waist harness. That’s not to say you shouldn’t buy a waist harness at first, but there are couple of things to look at first.
FITTING GUIDE Have you tried it on? This is absolutely key and you need to make sure the harness you buy feels comfortable and supportive around your waist and lower back. What’s it designed for? Wave harnesses sometimes have a sliding spreader bar, which allows the wearer to turn more freely when hitting a wave. Freestyle harnesses distribute the weight differently and can be quite low profile and less supportive than a freeride harness. Freeride harnesses are designed to be worn for long hours on the water and will offer the most comfort, stability and functionality.
Regardless of whether it’s a seat or waist harness, check for the following: • Check that the harness is snug and comfortable around your lower back and there’s enough support for your body shape. • Make sure there’s a suitable amount of adjustability in the straps. • Check that the spreader bar has a pad so it can’t ride up. An old windsurfing harness will not suffice! • It needs to have a grab handle on the back so that an instructor or helper can grab a hold of it when you’re on the beach.
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YOUR FIRST KITE Getting your first kite, or your first ‘quiver’ (collection) of kites is an exciting time! There are numerous types and not all of them are ideal for beginners, but if you can choose the right kite for you it will become one of your most treasured possessions. It’s very important to buy something appropriate for your level, so here are some things to be aware of:
TYPES OF KITE C-KITES – These are designed for unhooked freestyle tricks. They’re still quite similar to earlier production kite designs and will generally have the least depower, so aren’t an ideal choice to begin with. Freestyle riders however often love the constant source of power. WAVE KITES – Wave kites are closer in style and look to freeride kites and can be quite flat or ‘delta’ shaped. They usually have lighter bar pressure and really quick steering for rapid handling in the waves. Some wave kites, like the North Neo, are often quite popular among beginners.
Mika Fernandez riding the F-One Bandit kite and Trax twin-tip – two examples of modern freeride designs that can work for all levels of rider, whatever you want to do! Photo – Gilles Calvet / F-One
FREERIDE KITES – This is a broad category and it includes everything from user friendly, entry level kites to grunty kites designed for huge jumps and insane power and upwind performance. These can also vary in their shapes, being both high and low aspect, however, all should have good levels of depower if they were designed in the last two years. RACE KITES – These are always very high aspect (thin and long looking in the sky). Technical to fly and control in the wind window, they are often ridden by riders who like to jump really high too, but again, they’re not recommended for beginners.
CONSIDERATIONS Each kite brand now make a kite suitable for beginners but, when choosing one, there are a few things to look at.. HANDLING – You need a kite that’s responsive to your steering input but not so fast that it moves quicker than you can react to. Some wave kites, advanced freeride and
freestyle kites, might be a little too fast than you can handle to begin with. DEPOWER – Your first kite needs to be easy to depower by simply sheeting out the bar so that you can spill power from the canopy quickly if you feel overpowered or make a mistake. RELAUNCH – Easy relaunch from the water is going to make your early progression in kiteboarding much easier and a lot more fun. Delta shaped kites with very swept back wingtips generally relaunch the easiest. BAR PRESSURE – Bigger riders might prefer a kite with a little more bar pressure, but lighter riders can find it quite overbearing and, frankly exhausting, so it’s best to choose something without too much ‘grunt’. WIND RANGE – The better the low end of your kite the better it will perform in lighter winds which means you’ll be able to get out and practice in safer, lighter winds. The better the top end the stronger the wind you can safely use it in.
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HAZARDS / WEATHER WIND The first thing to think about is whether it’s actually windy enough to go kitesurfing. Generally speaking, an average sized rider of around 75 kilos on a mid-sized kite is going to need around 15 knots of wind to really get going and have fun. Every kite has a different wind range and modern kites have very generous amounts of depower, so you can use them in a wider range of wind than ever before, but you should be careful not to go out in winds that exceed the safe usable range of your kite. You also need to be aware of the wind’s direction. Cross-shore or onshore winds are ideal as they’ll be unbroken, steady and less gusty. Offshore or seriously cross-offshore winds should be avoided as they’ll be gusty due to the turbulence created around objects on the land and, if you get in trouble, you’ll be blown offshore which is less than ideal!
HAZARDS The majority of serious accidents happen on the beach where there are hard objects that you can collide with, so always be aware of any potential hazards around you. Anything downwind of you is potentially a hazard as, should you make a mistake with the kite, there’s a chance you’ll be pulled towards it, so keep a distance of at least three times the length of your lines between you and anything you don’t want to end up crashing into. Also, as mentioned, wind can be more turbulent around large objects or structures, so look out for anything upwind of you that could cause the wind to be patchy, making your kite misbehave.
YOUR FIRST BOARD You never forget your first board. You’ll share pictures of it on social media, marvel at how pretty it is and gaze longingly at it propped up against your living room wall on windless days. Like your first kites, however, you need to get one that works for you! There are a few different types but the most commonly used are directionals and twin-tips. We’d recommend that you stick to a twin-tip as they’re the most suitable for the early stages of kiteboarding as they can be ridden both ways without having to move your feet. However, not all twin-tips are necessarily suited to beginners and getting a board that’s too focused on performance freestyle will make the early stages of your kiteboarding life more difficult. FLEX – The more flexible a board is the more comfortable it will be, but it will also be slower through the water and not as good at going in light winds. At the same time you don’t want anything too stiff that will provide an overly tough ride. Look for something with a forgiving amount of flex, especially if you kite in choppier waters. SHAPE – To the uninitiated, all twin-tips look the same, but if you look closely you’ll see otherwise. Go for a board with a more rounded, less aggressive outline. Don’t go for something with very square tips and super straight rails as it’ll be performance orientated and pretty unforgiving.
Sensi Graves, Melon grab Photo – Vincent Bergeron
FOOT STRAPS OR BOOTS – Although you’ll see images of many pro riders riding in boots that bind them to the board like a wakeboarder, they ride them because they need the extra security when landing their tricks hard and fast. When you’re learning and improving, foot straps make life much easier. Once you get to an advanced level, you can choose whether you want to switch to riding in boots or not.
MATERIALS – There are a number of different materials used in the production of twin-tips. Some top-of-the-range boards feature full or part carbon construction. Carbon boards can be very light and tuned to have a unique flex pattern, but these aren’t necessarily elements that you need or perhaps will even notice and at this stage there’s no need to spend the extra money on luxury materials like that. Standard wood core and plastic coated top and bottom layered boards are very good these days and much more robust.
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I SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW AND WHICH TO CHOOSE?
When looking for your first set up you may be more comfortable with the prices of used kites and boards. The second hand market is strong on eBay and across the numerous groups on social media. You can sometimes find quality gear for a reasonable price, but not all of the equipment you’ll see advertised online is as great a bargain as it initially appears.
THE PROS AND CONS OF BUYING USED PROS
• Used equipment doesn’t hold its value very well, so you can get last year’s models for a relatively low price. • If you’re buying it from someone at your local beach then they may well let you try it out before you buy it. • Modern equipment is very durable, so a used kite can have a long lifespan if well looked after. • Saving money on gear means you can spend more on travelling! CONS
• Buying equipment without seeing it in the flesh means you can’t inspect it yourself for damage. • It will no longer be covered by the warranty. • Unless purchased from a shop or school then you’re less likely to get very trust worthy guidance over what to buy. • If it breaks then you’ll have no one to return it to. • Buying equipment that’s too old, even if it’s in good condition, means you’ll be using a kite without essential modern safety systems.
Mads Wolleson popping a stalefish grab in Brazil on his Slingshot Crisis Photo – Andre Magarao Slingshot
JARGON
Let’s breakdown some key terms or phrases that you’re likely to hear on the beach, in the kite shop or in the product descriptions of your new gear: BOSTON VALVE
These are now the most commonly used inflation valves. The Boston valve requires a mid-sized nozzle attachment that comes supplied on most kite pumps and allows for a smoother air flow than the skinny nozzles from the past. Wider ones are fitted to some kites for super-quick airflow, but the Boston valve is very robust and is now the most common. BAR THROW
This refers to the amount of distance you can ‘sheet’ the kite in or out by pushing the bar up and down the depower line / rope. Pushing the bar away will depower the kite, while pulling it towards you will cause the kite to power up.
TRIM
STRUTS
Besides just moving the bar up and down the throw (sheeting in or out) you can also adjust the power in the kite by trimming it. Some control systems feature a clam cleat and some have on / off ‘toggles’, which allow you to adjust the length of the centre lines. This in turn dictates how much power is held in the canopy.
Struts are also inflatable and run from leading edge to trailing edge to keep the canopy rigid in the sky and stop it from flapping in the wind. You’ll most likely learn on a three strut kite as they offer a good balance between rigidity, light weight and easy power handling and relaunch. You will see kites with up to seven struts and sometimes only one or none at all. These are usually for more specialized styles of riding
LEADING EDGE / TRAILING EDGE
The leading edge is the large inflatable section that runs along the front of the kite, giving the kite its shape in the sky, its profile into the wind and allows it to float and easily relaunch when you drop it in the water. The trailing edge runs along the back edge of the kite. The trailing edge isn’t inflated but is usually reinforced with extra material for strength.
WINDWARD / LEEWARD (UPWIND / DOWNWIND)
Anything upwind of you is said to be to your ‘windward’ side. Anything to your ‘leeward’ side is downwind. If a rider is to your windward side then it’s their responsibility to avoid you, and if they’re leeward of you then you need to watch out for them (as you will have a better view of them than they have of you).