The Kiteboarder Magazine Vol. 9, No. 1

VOL. 9 NO. 1 A VOYAGE FOR MADMEN THE KITE BOAT PROJECT

THE KITE RACER INTERVIEWS KITEBOARDING IN OMAN

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CONTENTS

FEATURES: 10 A Voyage for Madmen 24 One Thousand and One Waves in Oman

36 Is Racing the Future

of Kiteboarding?

50 The Kite Boat Project 70 Coming Up Down Under

DEPARTMENTS: 44 Profiled: Matt Thames and Carol Freitas

48 The Scene 68 To the Moon 58 Wish List 60 Exposed 76 15 Minutes 78 Roots

On the Cover: Graham Howes kiteloops in South Africa.

Photo Jens Hogenkamp

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After dealing with a plague of recent injuries, Ruben Lenten is back on the water riding as hard as ever. Photo Kolesky/Nikon/Red Bull Content Pool

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Marina Chang, Publisher marina@thekiteboarder.com Paul Lang, Editor paul@thekiteboarder.com Shana Gorondy Art Director Alexis Rovira Editor At Large Gary Martin Technical Editor EDITORIAL CONSULTANTS Neil Hutchinson, Stefan Ruether, Rick Iossi, Toby Brauer, Brendan Richards, Matt Sexton, Kevin “Irie Dog” Murray, Kinsley ThomasWong, James Brown, Ginette Buffone, Maui Mike, Members of the Central Coast/Santa Barbara CKA

CONTRIBUTORS Gavin McClurg, Gabi Steindl, Adam Koch, Bryan Lake, Damien LeRoy, Johnny Heineken, Paolo Rista, Rob Douglas, Rob Whittall, Don Montague, Lou Wainman, David Cash

PHOTOGRAPHY Jens Hogenkamp, Kolesky/Nikon/Red Bull Content Pool, Jody MacDonald, Alan Norton/www.alannortonphotography.com, Buster Tronolone/www.bustertronolone.com, Carlos Altamirano/ asiomastercos.com, Rick Werneck, Leandro Pagliaro, Patrick Rebstock, Dave Broome, Helen Trotman, Judith Guillermo, Larry, Nick Muzik/Red Bull Content Pool, Nebraska Berman, Kiteboat Project/ Darrell Wong, Makani Power/Andrea Dunlap, Kiteboat Project/Betsy Pfeiffer, Kiteboat Project/Vincent Felice, Stephen Whitesell, Jimmie Hepp, Vincent Bergeron, Giles Calvet, Gustav Schmiege, Ydwer van der Heide, Epes Sargent, Glenn Chandler, Ilia Khodos, Talia Bolen, Wayne Griswold, Tonia Farman, Scott Halley, Marcus Bengsch, Katharina Kaelin, Gabi Steindl, Xylia Loubster Thanks to all editorial and photography contributors for supporting this magazine!

VISIT US ON: www.thekiteboarder.com www.thekiteboarderschool.com www.twitter.com/the_kiteboarder www.facebook.com/thekiteboardermagazine

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9

A Voyage

FOR MADMEN

By Gavin McClurg | Photos by Jody MacDonald

OUR EXPEDITION WAS A MISSION TO CONSCIOUSLY EXPLORE, KITEBOARD, DOCUMENT, AND RAISE AWARENESS OF SOME OF THE FEW REMAINING UNTOUCHED AREAS OF THE WORLD. While circumnavigating the world we spent 54,000 miles under sail, sailed in all three oceans, visited 50 countries, documented more than 140 virgin locations, had 40 professional riders on board, and swam with innumerable whales, manta rays, and sharks. Sounds pretty good right? The story that often doesn’t get told is the one about the challenges of pulling off something like our journey on Discovery, our 57-foot catamaran. The story below is made up of excerpts from the Best Odyssey Captain’s Log (www.offshoreodysseys.com/wp/captains-log/) that represent some of the highs and lows of our five-year circumnavigation. Was it a lot of work?

Yes. Was it worth it? Without a doubt.

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Discovery enters the abyss in the Marshal Islands.

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Discovery found what may be the most beautiful lagoon in the Pacific.

Mauricio Abreu recovers from a head-smacking wipeout.

Hemba child, Namibia.

Exploration We need the tonic of wildness...

At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.

—Henry David Thoreau 12

A basking shark opens wide in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland.

DECEMBER 2006: THE BEGINNING We all begin life with dreams of becoming something great. A pilot, possibly an astronaut, even a doctor, or maybe a professional athlete.

I myself trained for most of my youth pursuing a professional snow skiing career. Unfortunately, for most people dreams are relinquished to the demands of society and responsibility. We are suffocated by rules, debt, material goods, and needs that are spoon fed to us like the curious children we once were. Personally I’ve done everything possible over the years to fight these invisible chains, and while not always successful I have found a few things that help keep the onslaught at bay.

First, surround yourself with others who fight even harder than you do. We are all products of our environment. Put yourself in an atmosphere filled with inspiration and wonder and then work hard.

Dreams can become reality. A planned, articulated future scares me to death. Not only do I not know what’s around the next corner, I don’t want to.

Our dream began on a beach in Thailand in 2005.

We’d been sailing for eight years in the Pacific Ocean and Australasia on a 52’ monohull, trying to cover our expenses by operating charters.

The business was a financial disaster. The boat had drained all our money but our wanderlust remained strong. We loved kitesurfing, we loved sailing, we loved adventure. Could we marry our passions into a job?

A year and a half later The Best Odyssey was born: A five-year kitesurfing expedition around the world by sail.

MARCH 2007: ON THE ROCKS Just two months after the start of the expedition I nearly ended it all after a series of small but serious mistakes put us on a reef while sailing at full speed off Anegada Island in the Caribbean. My mind that night was on other matters. Jody and I had taken on serious debt to get the expedition off the ground. I hadn’t had a proper sleep in months and was a walking stressed-out zombie.

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Sky Solback, Madagascar.

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Luckily an emergency haul-out in Tortola and a relatively cheap repair of $5,000 USD had us back in the water without delay. My ego took a well-deserved clobbering and the mistake was a sobering reminder that there was no excuse as Captain to have a lapse in judgment, regardless of the circumstances.

OCTOBER 2007: SWIMMING IN SEWAGE In Cartagena, Colombia, we were anchored in the foulest body of water I’ve ever seen. Millions of tons of raw sewage run into the bay at the foot of the city every day. The water is black as night. It was here that I took a bad step in our dinghy and fell into the water while holding our backup outboard. I donned snorkel, mask, and fins, freedove forty feet to the bottom, and tied a line to the motor, barely visible in the muck. Back on the surface, we found it completely flooded with shit (literally) and salt water.

OCTOBER 2008: REALITY CHECK When the world’s economy went upside down we were on a passage in one of the most remote regions of the Pacific Ocean, completely oblivious.

Sailing on our previous boat in 2001, we were similarly oblivious when the Twin Towers were ambushed. Back then we were sailing between the Gambiers and Pitcairn Island, a region Outside Magazine described as one of the 25 hardest to reach places on earth. Take a moment to let that sink in. We live in a world of nearly seven billion people where information can be shared in milliseconds yet two of the largest events of the last decade passed without our knowledge.

The painful lesson that we all learned from both of these events was that statistics lie. Statistically, a terrorist attack on US soil was impossible. Lehman Brothers’ balance sheet was “sound.” On the surface, investing with Bernie Madoff was a good play. We now know that a serene surface often obscures a sea of sharks.

On the surface, my partner Jody MacDonald and I have incredible jobs. While some people would certainly miss not being connected to the daily news, I think many people are like us, relishing the thought of having little to trouble over beyond the coming and going of the wind, the rise and fall of the sun. On some days life at sea is this simple. This is the life that we all dream of and long for, but seeking bliss by a commercial sail operation extracts a toll on mind and body that few can imagine.

First there is the reality of space. Our year-round home is a vessel 57 feet long and 30 feet wide.

We share this sometimes-heaving platform with an average of six guests and two crew members for 200+ days per year. Alone time does not exist.

My day has no beginning and no end. Work is constant; there is no such thing as time off.

Time between trips is always a mad dash of cleaning, provisioning, maintenance, and administration. Dealing with immigration, permits, customs, and general bureaucracy alone rob us

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of thousands of dollars and untold amounts of time. If the generator, engine, water maker, or any other critical part fails we don’t have the luxury of calling in at port and making the repair. We operate almost exclusively where no other boats go in places where no facilities exist.

Not only does Jody suffer debilitating and nauseating sea sickness whenever we are underway, but there are a plague of parasites and infections we have both suffered as a result of travel in third world tropical countries, compounded by a consistent lack of sleep and rest and the enormous stress we must endure to keep the machine running smoothly. We’ve both been host to resistant and repeated Staph infections since the first year. In one year Jody suffered through Typhoid, E-Coli, Giardia, and an unidentified intestinal parasite that landed her in the hospital for the third time in as many months.

JANUARY 2009: AT THE ABYSS Off our starboard bow a light blue line runs like a straight edge into the distance until it disappears, the first sign of our destination. Outside this line we travel on a nearly bottomless sea, inside the line lies an enormous lagoon.

We hunt for an entrance through the reef. There isn’t mention of this atoll in any cruising guide or travel guide. This line seems to demarcate the end of the earth, the abyss. We have reached the farthest reaches of man. Never in all my travels by sea have I felt so remote, so far from everything. But the atoll is not uninhabited. There are people living on its small isles at the perimeter of the lagoon who approach us in handmade wind-powered canoes with honest smiles and baffled, inquisitive looks. They receive no visitors. I spoke with other “yachties” who had spent years sailing the outer atolls of the Marshall Islands and not a single one had ever come here. I searched the internet long and hard before the trip and did not find a bit of information about this place. We have come to the very edge of the white man’s reach.

We find the one pass into the lagoon. It is deep yet narrow, hemmed on each side by thriving coral walls that come to within inches of the surface. Huge schools of magnetic blue baitfish move in unison along the barrier, chased by unseen predators. Everyone jumps off the stern so Discovery can tow them along for a better view. I have never, ever seen such random sculpted beauty.

The scenery is beyond words, and I am gaffed at any attempt.

We travel under sail in no hurry to reach whatever destination lies ahead.

Miles of pristine reef pass at a languorous pace, each of us lost in easy thoughts. In time we reach a lone isle at the northern extremity of the lagoon. The anchor sinks into deep sand in 35 feet of water in what must be the largest swimming pool in the world. Locals approach in handmade outrigger canoes that seem much too small for their owners. Big men in pygmy-sized boats.

Off the coast of Moorea, French Polynesia.

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Kristin Boese shows off for the fishermen in Madagascar.

Jamie Mitchell paddles in the Maldives.

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Jesse Richman, Indonesia.

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Rajan the elephant and his Mahout (caretaker), Andaman Islands, India.

The village is filled with smiling children, proud mothers, and finely-featured grandmothers. We are graciously received. The children giggle uncontrollably when they see their faces on the camera’s LCD screen. Pete Cabrinha has it right when he says we should just stay here forever. We should. Moehau Goold, Mauricio Abreu, and Kristin Boese take some of the most daring children for rides on their backs, whisking the delighted kids across the lagoon while the rest of the village cheers them on.

We take a break with the local teacher, drinking coconut water on his floor. Someone asks what the biggest problem is for the community here.

The man laughs a bit, looks lovingly at his wife, innocently at us, and replies, “Problems? We have no problems here.” Life is like this at the end of the world.

SEPTEMBER 2009: SOLO HELL At the end of the third season we are in Bali on the eve of our departure for Malaysia where we have planned a major refit for the boat. Due to a number of unrelated factors I am suddenly without crew and have no time to arrange temporary replacements. I am now faced with the most daunting challenge I’ve ever faced at sea. I must cross two of the busiest shipping routes on Earth which also happen to straddle the equator, a band of latitude notorious for rancid weather.

For 10 days I never sleep more than a few minutes at a time. The autopilot is on the glitch and cannot be trusted. A nasty Staph infection takes hold in my left leg. In the Java Sea a succession of violent squalls batters us unabated for three days. The radar proves useless. Visibility in the torrential rain is less than 25 feet and thunder and lightning crack with shuddering intensity, fraying my nerves to the point where I am shaking in fear. It’s the most scared I have ever been at sea and the seas are relatively calm. In the Malacca Straits north of Singapore similar weather causes a near-collision with a cargo ship. There are at least two dozen freighters and tankers in close proximity traveling at 25 knots and we are invisible to one another. We are sitting ducks; a snail on a six-lane freeway at rush hour.

APRIL 2010: HANDICAPPED In the Maldives the sail drive (our transmission) of our port engine blows a clutch. Driving a catamaran with one engine is like driving an 18 wheeler in Manhattan with no reverse, except a mistake means we’re on the reef and all is lost instead of just receiving a traffic violation. To get the needed parts we have to fly one person in from Europe and another from the States, as shipping might involve customs delays we cannot afford. When the parts arrive it’s too hot in the equatorial heat to carry out the repair, so with clients on board we lift the engine and complete the repairs by night. Later in Madagascar we lose our starboard engine due to a fuel pump problem and go six months without the motor including four trips across the 600-mile Mozambique Channel and some of the roughest seas I’ve ever sailed off the Wild Coast of South Africa.

And yet people tell me all the time that I must have the best job in the world. These examples are a small sample of proof that they don’t understand the full picture. They are like the investors on Wall Street who believed in the sham.

What lies beneath those placid waters at the surface tells a completely different story.

AUGUST 2011: SLOW LIVING IN AN ANCIENT WORLD A curse and blessing of our times is the speed at which we can move about the planet. I often think it must be terribly hard for our guests who join us from around the world to negotiate the distances

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Moehau Goold, somewhere in Polynesia.

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and logistics required to get to the boat, then get their mind in a place where they can actually really BE on the boat rather than thinking about work, children, pets, bills, and all the distractions and nuances of daily life. Then suddenly just as they are getting into the groove, just as those layers of home are wearing off and the need to fire up the Blackberry or iPhone is beginning to fade they find themselves at the airport and it all comes rushing back in.

In no time they are back at work and their trip is cloistered in that unreliable region of our brains in charge of memory. All of this ties into the damnable paradox we all find ourselves in these days. As technology gets better and everything gets faster, promising to save us time, we all find that in fact we have less and less of it.

this elaborate web where escape is not impossible, but is certainly very difficult.

There were only a handful of times in the five years of the Best Odyssey expedition that I even left the boat. In theory I should have been immune to these pressures and paradoxes. I should have been firmly “in the groove” all the time. But technology these days doesn’t draw a line at the cities or the suburbs. It reaches everywhere. When we are offshore I can go online and check Facebook. I can tweet. It would cost a fortune so I don’t, but I could. But as soon as we are within cell range there is no escape. It was not uncommon on Discovery to be anchored in a beautiful bay, the smell of our chef’s creations wafting up from the galley, the sun easing behind the horizon and instead of lazing around on the decks taking it all in, everyone was banging away on their computers and phones. Hurry hurry, before the signal is gone!

The problem is we’ve been trained into thinking that to be efficient and to succeed in today’s world this is what we’ve got to do. We are caught up in

Meanwhile off our bow was a place with some of the oldest geological rock on Earth. This is a place people have been living in for well over 5,000 years, since before the time of the Pyramids. Things have changed much since the Neolithic, but it isn’t very apparent in the scenery. It’s a place that encourages taking a look around. It’s a place that on the surface at least has escaped the gloss and glitter facade of progress. If you remove the odd ferry and fishing boat things are almost certainly as they have been for thousands of years. We’d sailed across Cape Wrath and the north coast of Scotland

While anchored in Stornoway, Scotland, at the north end of the Outer Hebrides we were staring at the computer watching Teahupoo going off with one of the biggest swells in history, all in real time while in the main salon of our boat. But the problem then becomes a constant grapple with that old adage “the grass is always greener.” Let’s go there! Even while here is perfect.

Captain Gavin McClurg at the helm.

An approaching storm in Los Roques, Venezuela.

to explore the Orkneys, fantasized about kitesurfing under the cliffs of Hoy, drank scotch at the Highland Park distillery, and sat near a peat fire listening to stories of myth and legend, and we did it all at a pace that was very “old world.” I prefer this pace. I want to return to this pace. I could have sworn this was the pace I grew up at, the pace I’ve lived at for most of my life. Is it all a construct of a fallible memory, do I want to just believe that I used to be capable of slow living?

We returned to the Outer Hebrides for the last trip of our season, nearly the last trip of the five year circumnavigation. We sailed back across Cape Wrath, down the Big Minch, and across to the western shores where there are tiny towns, no boats, and very little in the way of company other than seals and birds. A big low pressure system hit us hard for a few days with loads of rain and winds upwards of 40 knots. At the same time the first big swell of the season bashed in from the west and I tried to position Discovery in a protected spot, yet still close enough that we could possibly kite some of the waves.

On the day the wind and swell peaked I found myself incapable of being smart and staying put. My role is to keep people on our boat safe, and that includes me. To kite to where the waves were I’d have to ride downwind ten miles, all of it dead offshore. If something were to happen to me or my gear I’d be in a desperate situation: offshore, alone, with big seas and furious winds pushing me further away from land. I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but I now understand the reason I decided to go out that day, even though

every fiber of my inner soul screamed “STOP!” It was because of this hidden guillotine that was chopping up my time and marginalizing my world.

I wanted to feel adrenaline. I wanted to feel fear.

I didn’t want to read about it on online or in the headlines of the local paper. I’m talking about raw fear, doing something that is possibly and probably beyond your own limits. For many days I hadn’t been able to paraglide, hadn’t been able to kite, hadn’t been able to surf. Calmer people, more together, grounded people don’t go crazy like I do. They read books, they play games, they find companionship, they internet. I like to think that before technology gave us all this time I was more together too, but that’s probably just my memory failing me again.

So I went offshore. Discovery was quickly eclipsed by distance, rain, and wind. I was truly alone and there was no chance of rescue. My kite could no longer withstand the gusts, which I guessed were near 50 knots. In no time I was completely out of control, racing across steep swells just trying to hang on. Then I crashed. I took one look at the shoreline and instantly pulled the release on

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Rob Born, Cape Verde.

The best journeys answer questions that in the beginning you didn’t even think to ask.

—Jeff Johnson my kite, knowing I had no chance of making land unless I started swimming immediately. For a brief moment I suddenly got everything I unconsciously craved: A healthy dose of raw fear. The water was 50°F and the wind was blowing 40 knots right in my face. The seas were a mess of steep, shortduration waves that hammered down on me relentlessly. I took a breath and began to swim, knowing that if I got a cramp I was a goner. Don’t panic.

After 30 minutes I couldn’t tell if I was making any progress. Just keep swimming, stay positive, curse yourself for being so stupid, don’t think about sharks. I don’t know how long I was out there but eventually I could make out that land was getting closer. I made it back to Discovery five hours later. Much of that time was spent swimming, and some was spent on land in a sandstorm just trying to find my way back. It was a search that I now realize was more involved than just finding the boat. Though my lungs burned and my legs ached and my eyes watered through most of it I know I was smiling. I was having fun, the kind of fun that technology always promises but never delivers.

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You remember these days. These are the experiences that shape a person’s life. This is when time slows way way down. Everything is in focus. There are

no distractions; there is nothing else going on at the periphery. The moment is pure and unfiltered. I wasn’t thinking of our next social marketing move.

I wasn’t trying to figure out how to increase our website hits. I wasn’t trying to figure out what’s next at all.

Our mission was kiteboarding and finding the best places on earth to play hard. What we went through chasing that mission was daunting, sometimes life threatening, frequently nearly intolerable, and often painful. But to me that other world of headline news and Google searches, reality TV and HBO, traffic jams, and car payments is a scarier world by far. As a friend recently remarked, “Your battles may be as big as a God, but at least it shows its face.” The price of admission is certainly steep, but it’s a ticket I’ll happily pay for again and again.

The Best Odyssey ran its final trip in Spain in October of 2011. Gavin and Jody have just announced they are launching another five year expedition in partnership with Cabrinha Kiteboarding this spring.

To find out how you can join, visit http://www.offshoreodysseys.com.

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Photo Katharina Kaelin

By Gabi Steindle/www.kitegabi.com

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Photo Gabi Steindl

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Photo Xylia Loubster

Once upon a time, Sindbad the Sailor (Abu Ubaida ibn Abdullah ibn Qassim) ventured out on the adventure of a lifetime. Today I’m sure he would be a kitesurfer and he might never have sailed so far from home. Why? I recently traveled to his home grounds and found sheer kiteboarding perfection. iders who have followed my travels over the past few years know that ever since I stopped competing on the World Tour, I have been focusing on freeride missions in search of new and unknown kitesurfing destinations far away from the crowds. I simply love to immerse myself in other worlds and different cultures. So far, my journeys have taken me to some of the most remote corners of our planet.

On my mission as a globetrotting freerider I have managed to enter the history books of the Trobriand Islands (Papua New Guinea) as the ‘Flying Blonde Girl,’ had the privilege to kitesurf on hidden lakes in Russia, ridden perfect waves in the deepest outback of Australia, explored unknown coastlines in Belize, Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, New Zealand, and Cape Verde, and played in the waters of Caribbean islands that are still completely unknown. During these travels I have had many special and unforgettable experiences.

With this in mind, once again I packed more than 100 pounds of gear at the invitation of a friend and jumped on a plane to a fascinating country that not many people would associate with kitesurfing. At least not yet.

The country I landed in was Oman and ahead of me was a place that would truly enchant me with its cultural mix, its symbiosis of past and modern times, and of course its absolutely amazing kiting conditions.

Photo Xylia Loubster

The proud Omani people and the breathtaking landscapes of their country are largely unknown to the outside world, but Oman is a place well worth exploring. Located along the southeastern shore of the Arabian Peninsula, the geography of Oman consists of wildly ragged high-altitude mountains, deep canyons, idyllic oases, and widely spread out plantations. The nearly endless stretches of amazing sand and gravel deserts flow into a diverse rhythm of white sandy beaches and steep cliffs along the 1,700 mile coastline.

When people think of the Middle East, they often think of war, political unrest, pirates capturing tanker and container ships, religious fanaticism, chaos, and Iran working calmly on the bomb. In my experience, none of

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The pink dream world on the way to Shana’a.

Photo Gabi Steindl

these stereotypes applied to Oman. Although Muslim to its core and a closed country for a long time, Oman has rapidly developed due to its oil assets but also has managed to maintain much of its traditional culture. With exceptional friendliness, openness, and great inner peace, Oman’s inhabitants welcome all strangers. Pushiness is an unknown concept here and so is religious fanaticism. It’s a stable and peaceful place and the Omanis are particularly proud of what they have established over the last 40 years under the reign of Sultan Qaboos, the leader responsible for easing the country into modernity.

The country of Oman is proof that progress must not inevitably go hand in hand with a loss of cultural identity and humanity. There’s no space in Oman for hate-filled conflicts between tradition and modernity, between religion and cosmopolitanism. This placid oasis is surrounded by three bodies of water: the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, and the Arabian Sea. A safe place to travel with consistent wind, a seemingly endless coastline, and high-quality waves sounds a bit like a fairy tale, but the good news is that it’s not, it’s a reality!

To get there, one jumps on a plane to the city of Muscat, normally via Dubai, where I would definitely recommend a short sightseeing stopover. Muscat, the capital of Oman, is an incredibly picturesque town with fascinating markets, oases, date groves, and buildings that captivate visitors with an almost kaleidoscopic-colored mix of amazing Arabian architecture. “Muscat is a port the likes of which cannot be found in the whole world where there is business and good things that cannot be found elsewhere,” said the great Arabian navigator Ahmed bin Majid al-Najdi in 1490. Muscat, even to this day, has a character quite different from its neighboring capitals. The name Muscat means anchorage and the town is strategically located along the trade route to India and China. As the world’s largest natural harbor it saw immense trade in the age of sail. Today, the sea continues to constitute a major part of this amazing city. Wedged into a relatively narrow strip of land between mountains and sea, one of the must-sees in the Muscat province is without a doubt the Mutrah Souq, perhaps one of the oldest marketplaces in the world.

A three-hour drive south of Muscat lies Ras Al Hadd, a perfect lagoon for any freestyle enthusiast. Nearby hills can make the wind a bit gusty, but the flat water is guaranteed to get every freestyle-lover frothing for sure! Don’t worry if flat water isn’t really your cup of tea though. Just drive a bit further south and you will find a few sick wave spots along the coast of the mainland such as Al Askarah, Fishermen’s Bay, and Assilah, a perfect point break that produces an extremely long wave. On good days at Assilah, a dozen turns on the same wave is easily possible.

I started the trip from Dubai in a convoy of a few cars. We picked up Alan Norton, an amazing photographer and really great guy, along with a few suitcases full of his camera gear. Taking into account Alan’s tight schedule and the weather forecast, we rushed to catch a ferry to Masirah Island, the country’s largest island off the southeastern coast of Oman. Driving through the desert was a truly memorable experience. Countless camels interrupted our journey over and over again, wandering through the desert ownerless and serene. They walk in the middle of the streets and force drivers to stop.

Honking the horn doesn’t impress these really headstrong and elegant creatures very much. They only respond with a slightly contemptuous look. If camels could talk, they would have probably said, “C’mon man, chill out, don’t be such a pain in the neck!” before leisurely getting off the road when they felt like it.

Shortly before reaching the town of Shana’a where the ferries set off for the seven-mile journey to Masirah, we passed by a breathtakingly beautiful salt lake. The sky and the clouds were reflected in strong pink and rose colors in its perfectly flat mirror surface. The sight was so intense it inspired me to sit down on one of the salt bags along its edge to meditate for a few minutes.

There wasn’t a breath of wind in the air. If there had been even the slightest breeze, I would not have been able to resist the urge to pump up a kite and to go for a ride in this pink dream world.

The ferry crossing turned into one of the highlights of the trip due to some rather surreal scenes that I’m privileged to have experienced. Apart from us, there was a group of locals on board. Everyone was obviously in a very good mood and I could tell by their clothing that it must have been a festive day for

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them. The men were wearing their traditional white Arabian Thawb, an anklelength cotton tunic, and turbans. The women were dressed in their traditional colorful robes worn on top of Sirwal-pants and also had fine henna paintings on their hands and feet. This was the first time during my trip that I saw women wearing their traditional face masks, which can seem a bit scary at first glance. The men were a little scary at first as well, as they had rifles and Khanjars, the traditional dagger of Oman, worn on their waists.

Due to the language barrier, we couldn’t really talk with each other, but the beauty about these moments on deck is that it didn’t matter at all that we were unable to communicate with words. For reasons that I will never know, suddenly we were all having a little party together on board the ferry during the approximately 90-minute ride. It all felt so natural. The men were singing, the women clapped their hands, and we danced and made music together.

Empty buckets that were rolling around on deck became drums with some of the men stabbing the air with their daggers to the rhythm of the music.

“Wow, what a special experience,” I thought to myself while the ferry berthed in the picturesque harbor of Masirah Island.

Right next to the port is the town of Ras Hilf, the only permanently inhabited town on the island. Approximately 10,000 people live in this sedate little township. There are a handful of markets, gas stations, coffee shops, and a rather modern hospital that I’d be lucky enough to see up close before the

Photo Alan Norton

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end of my visit. Ras Hilf is the perfect place to fill up your energy reserves in one of the tasty yet very simple restaurants as well as to stock up on the always necessary supply of drinking water.

Meals in the restaurants are super cheap (usually about $5 USD) and very good. No matter whether it’s grilled fish or meat, fresh fruits, or vegetables, everything is eaten with the fingers of the right hand. Tourists, however, normally get cutlery with their meals without having to ask for it. The locals are incredibly friendly and never pushy or disrespectful.

In terms of accommodations, Masirah offers a small but all-encompassing range of options.

There are three local hostels, one four-star hotel (Swiss Belhotel Resort) that’s situated directly on the beach, and Sur Masirah (www.kiteboardingoman.com), a really wicked kite camp with Bedouin-style tents managed by a cool German dude named Alex.

Oman’s summer monsoon season is locally known as Khareef. Really strong monsoon winds usually blow like crazy in Masirah from the end of May until the start of September. Days of 15-20 knots are common and 25-35 knot days are frequent.

The further up the coast you go on the mainland towards the north, the less windy it is. During the winter the wind direction swings to the north and is considerably lighter and much less consistent.

That’s why European and US summertime is without a doubt the best time to come here. It

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Photo Alan Norton

also happens to be the best time to be here with regards to swell. During summer the waves build with the strong wind from the south and can reach considerable size.

Due to the size of the island (60 miles long by 9 miles wide) the different conditions available vary widely. A car is an absolute must on the island if one wants to experience it all, but driving times and distances are really user-friendly. It’s easy to ride at two or even three different spots in one day.

There’s a spot for every kiter’s taste in Masirah: flat water freestyle heavens and wave spots for all levels.

The scenery here had me dreaming with its beautiful mix of mountains and desert. It made me feel like I was in another world at times. The feeling was especially dramatic as Alan and I were pretty much alone at most spots and hardly ever met another soul during our photo shoots or when driving from one spot to the next. This made the rare encounters with the locals even more interesting! Each person we met wanted to help or provide us with some useful information. Language barriers were bridged with friendliness and everyone had a warm smile for us. Even a group of desert women, who are known to be extremely shy, stood right beside me during a break between sessions and smiled at me from underneath their face masks.

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The wave spots along the east coast turned out to be my favorite places to kite, regardless of a little accident during one of my last sessions at Shinzi on the northeast side of Masirah. While enjoying smooth little waves in a consistent offshore breeze, the wind all of a sudden dropped from one minute

to the next, something totally unusual for here. As a result I ended up on a really gnarly reef covered in mussels sharp as knives. This is when I got to know the Masirah hospital from the inside. Six clean stitches later I was back on track. Unlike the hole in my foot, there was no one on the island who could fix the huge hole in the brand new board that North had shipped to me for the trip. Luckily I had a spare board in my quiver. I highly recommend bringing as much spare gear as possible when visiting Oman.

Given the stitches in my foot, my motto for the trip from now on was “tape, tape, tape, and grit my teeth. A kitesurfer knows no pain.” With duct tape and plastic wrap I wrapped up the fresh stitches as tightly as possible before going into the water.

Although I’m a wave freak to the core, one of the most memorable kiting highlights of my trip has nothing to do with the sweet waves of the Arabian Sea. Searching the island for picturesque places to shoot photos at, once again we passed by the harbor of Ras Hilf. I watched the hustle and bustle and the busy fishermen for a while and fell in love with the atmosphere. The wind was blowing at

Photo Xylia Loubster

WIND: The peak wind season is May through September when small kites (5-7m) are mandatory! The further south you travel, the windier it gets.

SPARE PARTS: Kiteboarding and surfing equipment is basically impossible to find in Oman. I highly recommend bringing as many spare parts as luggage restrictions allow.

Photo Gabi Steindl

VISA: A visa is required to enter Oman and will allow you to stay for up to four weeks.

Photo Gabi Steindl

least 20 knots, but the water inside the harbor walls was as flat as a mirror, the ferries and fishing boats reflecting on the surface like a painting. I hesitated for just a moment and thought to myself, “Surely the Omanis won’t arrest me...I think,” and off I went. An unforgettable dance with my kite in my very own private and perfect freestyle heaven came next.

Yet again dream-like moments and an amazing feeling rushed through my body while boosting all different sorts of tricks all alone out there in the harbor’s waters. For hours I carved around the old wrecks of traditional dhows, and I wasn’t the only one having a good time. A few minutes into my ride, a considerable number of locals were lined up along the breakwater walls observing the show.

I jumped over a small fishing boat and they screamed and cheered for me like crazy. Cars stopped along the street and delayed the traffic, but nobody really seemed to be bothered with that.

Everybody wanted a share of the action plus nobody is stressed in Masirah anyway. Back on shore, the kids ran around on the beach following my kite in the sky.

The sea around Masirah is full of life: Pink flamingos, dolphins, seals, and giant turtles. Masirah is home to the world’s largest loggerhead turtle colony and it’s mind blowing to watch these amazing, giant sea turtles rolling around in the sand in order to lay their eggs. One must do everything to not scare these wonderful creatures. With a little bit of luck freshly hatched turtle babies will crawl around right at your feet. Camels freely run around the island and it can quite easily happen that you find one looking right at you while pumping up your kite.

RAMADAN: The month of fasting is maintained in its traditional form in Oman. This means there’s no food available from sunrise until after sunset.

If you visit during Ramadan (July 20 – August 18 for 2012) you should stock up on snacks and water, but you should be respectful and not eat or drink in public during the daytime.

SENSITIVE TRAVELING: One should always pay respect to local customs and approach the Omanis appropriately according to their customs, so make sure to read up a bit beforehand! In Oman you’ll be warmly received as a visitor. Unconditionally and without any thought of a potential business opportunity, one is warmly welcomed by the locals. A little basic knowledge about the Arabian way and culture will go a long way to ensuring mutually respectful experiences. Please make sure to always ask for permission if you want to take photos of the local people!

Photo Katharina Kaelin

I’ve never been to a country that compares to the experiences and feelings that I had in Oman and I certainly will be visiting this very unique little piece of paradise one day again in the future. This trip has left me convinced that had Sinbad known about kiteboarding, he would have stayed right here!

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The

Kite Racer Interviews Words and Photos by Paul Lang

ver the past few years, the course racing discipline of kiteboarding has been slowly gaining momentum. Whether you are a fan of this aspect of our sport or not, you have to admit that it’s here to stay. Some people are pushing hard to promote kiteboarding course racing and there is a movement to get some form of kite racing (course racing or slalom) into the Olympics. While a group of dedicated kiteboarders has been heavily focused on the progression and promotion of kite racing, it seems like the rest of the kiteboarding world is split on what they think about it.

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Is this the future of kiteboarding?

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Johnny Heineken Bryan Lake AKA Bernie

Adam Koch

Some kiteboarders are really excited to see this aspect of kiteboarding gain momentum. The people promoting kite racing say that racing is the only fair way to compete. There are no judges and the fastest rider gets first place, no questions asked. They also like to talk about the fact that racing is a great equalizer. Riders who have no chance of competing in a freestyle competition can go out and race against the top racers in the world. Another thing kite racing has going for it is the minimal amount of wind it takes to have a fair race. While it can take a minimum of 20 knots or so to have an exciting freestyle heat, I have seen legitimate course races happen in as little as five knots of wind.

There’s also a crowd of kiteboarders that don’t like what they see when they look at course racing. Their main complaints seem to be that it’s expensive (the top boards with fins can cost more than $2,000) and doesn’t do a good job of promoting the sport of kiteboarding. A complaint I often hear some version of is “With all the things that are possible to do behind a kite, do we really want the world to see kiteboarding as a bunch of people chasing each other around buoys?”

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Why do you race? When asked why they race, one thing seemed constant: they race because it’s something they love to do. “When the St. Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco announced the first Kite Racing World Championships, I was like a kid in a candy store,” said Adam Koch, who raced sailboats from a young age. Adam was also a very early pro kiteboarder who dropped off the radar for a few years only to reappear as a top-level racer. “This gave me the platform I needed to apply all the sailing skills I learned as a kid. Kite racing is sailing and I love sailing.”

I find myself fitting into a third group who doesn’t quite know what to think yet. I had a very strong sailing background before I learned to kiteboard and have always looked at kite racing with some interest. However, I’ve been covering events since the beginning of kite racing and it felt like every time I went to a racing event the boards had radically changed compared to the ones I had seen previously. I never started racing because I never felt like I had enough time and money to play the gear evolution game.

Bryan Lake is well known for his strapless skimboard skills, but has quickly climbed the rankings in kite racing, finishing third at last year’s World Championships. “It’s all about competition,” said Bryan. “You can go out and ride your skimboard everyday and be so free and have so much fun, but there’s no competition for that.

Then there’s racing and there’s nothing more cut and dry than getting first place or last place. I’m just really competitive. I grew up racing sailboats and now that sailing game has evolved into our kiting game. It’s a pretty fun game to play when you’re going 20 knots.”

During the 2012 La Ventana Classic, many of the world’s top racers showed up to compete. One at a time, we pulled aside a handful of them, put them in front of a camera, and asked questions about the direction of racing and what they thought it means for kiteboarding.

Current World Champion Johnny Heineken said, “It’s everything about sailing that I love without the logistics of getting a boat to the other side of the world. It’s so easy and simple. Some

Julien Kerneur blasts downwind.

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people think it’s gear intensive, but it’s so mellow compared to racing a high performance sailboat.

We’re going just as fast and having as much fun as them without all the boat work. You can put your gear in a travel bag and go from event to event.”

“It’s endless. You can ride pretty much all the time,” said longtime pro rider Damien LeRoy. “Even in five knots of wind you can go out with your buddies and just have a good time.” Rob Douglas, who holds the outright sailing speed record was also in La Ventana competing on the race course.

“Any time on the water is good,” he said. “You can learn from each discipline and apply it to your own. With course racing, you can experience a lot of power in 15 knots of wind. It’s good training that I can apply to speed sailing.”

What do you have to say to people who don’t like racing? It’s clear there are a lot of kiteboarders who don’t have any interest in racing and don’t like seeing it promoted. In response to those people, Damien said, “You know, our sport is so unique. We have freestyle, course racing, wave riding, we have all these aspects of kiteboarding.

If you have all the wave guys pushing wave riding, freestyle guys pushing freestyle, and racing guys pushing racing, the sport is going to just keep growing. I hope companies and designers don’t just focus on one thing. Some people only want to ride waves. Some people just want to cruise. Everybody likes their own thing.”

“You do what you know and you think it’s the best,” said Johnny. “We kind of think the same way with racing. But the thing it does is it opens up so many more places and so many more days to kiting. If people in Southern California figured out that you can have fun when it isn’t even possible to ride a twin tip, they might think differently.” Bryan Lake’s response is sure to get a few people’s blood boiling. “It’s kind of like freestyle motocross versus racing,” he said. “You know, tricks are for kids. If you want to come play with the big dogs, come join the race fleet.”

What about the gear? Is it still rapidly evolving? Many kiteboarders are intimidated by the idea of having to always be testing and buying new gear to stay competitive, but everyone we talked to was in agreement that the rapid evolution phase of course racing is over. “The equipment race is over,” said Adam. “It’s done.

The boards might not change for two years. We’re honing in on what we’re doing. Now, if Johnny and I are neck and neck, it comes down to who got their back foot in the strap first, not the gear we have.” Everyone else had a similar response.

“Everybody is really close right now,” said Damien.

“Fins from last year are still really competitive.

There’s always room for improvement, but I think you can buy something right now and it will still be competitive in five years.”

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Paolo Rista, Fin Designer for Rista Fins (http:// ristafins.com), agrees the evolution of gear is reaching a plateau. He said, “The good news is that we’re at that point where a brand new fin

today will still be very competitive next season. Now it’s becoming more of a question of whether a fin is the right size for that rider’s weight or for that particular board. That’s a healthy progression for the sport.”

What does kite racing bring to the sport of kiteboarding? One of the obvious benefits of kite racing is that it has pushed the light wind limit for kiteboarding ridiculously low. Currently based in San Diego, Bryan said, “Basically a race board allows me to ride every single day. You only need seven knots of wind and you can get that anywhere.” Rob Whittall, Kite Designer for Ozone, said, “There’s no other aspect of kiteboarding that can perform in ten knots of wind. As a showcase of the sport, it’s brilliant. I think it’s just going to keep getting bigger and bigger.”

Johnny sees the potential for racing to draw a lot more people into kiteboarding. “You know, I think the kiteboarding industry doesn’t realize that there’s a big potential market out there in terms of sailors who might want to kiteboard.” Paolo mentioned the sense of community that comes from racing.

“Racing is a wonderful way to become part of a new community,” he said.

“You’re very connected to the other people on the water. That’s the key. That link gives you a good feeling when you come in off the water.”

All the racers we talked to feel the period of rapid gear evolution is over.

What about the Olympics? “It seems like the only way it’s going to happen is if we’re a sailing class,” said Johnny. “If that part of the sport were to go Olympic, that doesn’t mean it has to be the face of the sport. It won’t be the only discipline out there and it won’t have to dictate how the whole sport functions. I think any mainstream visibility we can get will be good. Kiteboarding is on the verge of becoming very accessible, but not many people know they can just take lessons for two days and become a kiteboarder.”

Adam seemed a little conflicted about the idea of kiteboarding being in the Olympics because he doesn’t like to see the sport becoming political.

“When I first heard about the possibility of getting kiteboarding into the Olympics, I was all for it,” he said. “What child doesn’t want to have a gold medal? But when I hear about the politics and the details of it, I start to wonder if it is healthy for our

sport. On the other hand, what if it blows four knots? Trying to do a freestyle competition in those conditions isn’t going to make the sport look good.”

What does the sailing world think about kite racing? Most of the top kite racers raced sailboats before learning to kiteboard. While many kiteboarders see course racing as an expensive form of the sport, most riders we talked to see it as a very cheap form of high-performance sailing. “From what I see, a lot of sailors are learning to kiteboard because of course racing,” said Adam. “Instead of racing on a million dollar sailboat, they can spend $5,000 and have the latest, most awesome racing equipment. It’s allowing them to take a sport they’ve been doing for a long time and are passionate about and increase the speed and level of the game they play. Everyone’s complaining about not enough money in the sport and not enough sponsor dollars and this is a chance to bring a lot more money into kiteboarding.”

Rob Douglas, who also grew up sailing, said, “Financially it’s the most easily accessible form of sailing. If you look at kiteboarding as a class of sailing and look at what it can do, from the snow to the dirt, to the speed course, to the waves, to flat water, it’s the pinnacle of sailing to me.” Bryan said, “People who know me through sailing are contacting me. They’re saying, ‘We want to

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Johnny Heineken and Bryan Lake enjoy a close race.

get into that, that looks so cool. We want to race.’ Right now, we’re the most high-performance kind of sailing there is.” Damien didn’t grow up sailing, but he said, “We’ll go jump in the starting line with other sailboats and they’ll just be like, ‘What am I doing on this thing when I could be on that kiteboard?’ I see a lot of sailors learning to kiteboard because of course racing.”

What do retailers think? We also talked to Evan Mavridoglou, who has a retail shop in the San Francisco Bay Area (Live2Kite, http://live2kite.com).

He sees course racing as a small but growing segment of kiteboarding.

“2012 is the first year we’ve seen kite racing clubs ordering boards. Ten to fifteen-rider teams are ordering race boards from us, showing that racing against friends is a fun and growing activity among kiters.” He also sees the perplexed look from kiteboarders when they see a course board for the first time. “Let’s face it - they look intimidating,” he said. “The most recent racing kiteboards look insane to the untrained eye. The fins are flesh-cutting sharp and positioned in ways that an average kiter can’t relate to. The 2012 IKAregistered boards are 180cm long by 70cm wide and two to three inches thick! These are not your regular daily twin tip boards.”

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What should people do who are interested in racing? The racers we talked to all recommend finding a board to borrow or a used board to purchase to get into racing. “I can understand people don’t want to go order a race board because they want to try it,” said Johnny. “I think you pretty much need to have a friend with a board to get started. If you can get a fleet of five guys in your area to do it, you can do simple pick-up races, have fun, and go drink beer afterward. It’s great.” Adam suggests that you can take steps towards racing without having to buy new gear. “If you want to learn how to race, first learn how to tack with the equipment you have. Don’t feel like you have to have the latest gear. Whether you’re in first or last place, you’re still racing against the guy next to you. That’s what is so beautiful about sailing.”

“I’d recommend getting a used board and just getting out on the water,”

said Bryan. “Learn how to tack and jibe and experience how these boards feel when they’re going full speed. Don’t quit and try to ride that board as fast as you can.”

What does it all mean? Before conducting these interviews, I didn’t quite know what to think about racing. Now, I see it as a small yet growing segment of kiteboarding being driven by a passionate group of riders. I’ve also realized that the growth of racing doesn’t have to harm any other kiteboarding disciplines. There’s room for every part of the sport to grow in its own way and if racing can bring more people and more money to kiteboarding, that could be a very good thing. Does it mean I’m going to quit riding waves and focus on racing? Nope, but it’s peaked my interest enough to get a race board.

Thanks to Damien LeRoy, I’ve got a used one on the way. I’ll wait until I give it a try to decide what I really think it.

To watch the Kite Racer Interview videos, go to http://thekiteboarder. com/2012/03/kiteracer-interviews or scan the code.

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PROFILED

Matt Thames Growing up in southern Oregon, it seemed natural that Matt would learn to snowkite before learning to ride on the water. Shortly after graduating high school he began playing bass guitar and was a member of the band SolSurvivors for eight years. When the band split up, Matt became very passionate about kiteboarding and transferred a lot of his focus into the sport.

In 2008 he and friend Jason Jermain created the Southern Oregon Kite Addicts and started to promote the sport locally in southern Oregon.

Both an IKO and PASA certified instructor, he has been teaching kiteboarding for four years.

Matt also has two snowkite DVD appearances in Buster Tronolone’s All and All is All We Are and Slawek Krauze’s Winderland.

How did you first get started in the sport?

I discovered kiteboarding through some paraglider friends in 2006. This was the era when the new bridled kites started hitting the market and everyone was replacing their existing C-kite quivers with the new technology. I bought my first C-kite off of Ebay (11m 2001 Wipika Airblast) and taught myself how to fly it in the local hills and snowfields.

Which do you think is easier to learn, snowkiting or water kiting? It depends a lot on the rider’s background. I’ve been snowboarding for over 15 years and learned on the snow first because that is my background and more my element. The key factor is learning the dynamics of the kite regardless of the riding surface.

What are you currently working on? Right now I’ve been working a lot on wakestyle tricks like Back Mobes and KGBs. I’ve started riding with boots and short lines more and more frequently over the last few years and I like the technical aspect of keeping the kite low and parked throughout the trick. When everything lines up it’s a very rewarding feeling.

Photo Carlos Altamirano/asiomastercos.com

What do you do off the water? I skateboard, snowboard, and try to essentially do all board sports out there. I think all board-related sports complement each other and can help fine tune the riding aspect of kiting.

Where is your favorite place to kite? The Slider Park in Hood River, Oregon. The community of people in HR is amazing. I have a lot of respect for Joby, Jake, Forrest, and the rest of the Slider Project crew for creating an arena of stoke that makes everyone push themselves no matter if they are a new rider learning their first slider or a pro throwing 7s off the kicker.

What is your most memorable kiteboarding experience? While snowkiting I pulled off a glide over 200’ high off a hill and over the highway at Strawberry Reservoir in Utah. I will never forget looking down at this trucker. The look on his face was like a deer in the headlights as I was waving at him from 80’ high while descending from my flight.

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Any other words of wisdom you want to share?

Live life to the fullest and follow your heart.

Photo Buster Tronolone

Age: 31 Years Kiting: 6 Favorite Spots: The Columbia Gorge, Oregon, and Camas Prairie, Idaho Sponsors: Wainman Hawaii, Mystic Kiteboarding, Transcend Apparel, KiteSurfNorthAmerica.com

GEAR

Boards: Joke 142cm, 159 Decosse Custom Snowkite Board Kites: Entire quiver of Rabbit 2.0s Harness: Mystic Shadow

TIPS:

Rinse and repeat! Repetition is the key to learning anything new.

The rewards often far outweigh the struggle. Keep at it and don’t give up! n Give new kiters a break and help them out when you see they need it. It improves the sport as a whole and makes the world a better place to ride. n Be humble, or be humbled. n

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PROFILED

Caroline Freitas In 2002 Carol Freitas was Brazil’s first champion of kitesurfing and she hasn’t stopped since. After years of competing on the international and national circuits, the 12x Brazilian Champion is taking this year off to focus on traveling as a freerider and wants to share her experiences with other watersport enthusiasts around the world.

“I love what I do,” said Carol. “Every day I walk into the water as if for the first time. I believe that being a professional athlete is not just about collecting trophies. One must also have humility – without it, we go nowhere.”

What do you think of the KSP tour? It’s a great circuit. The first year proved that. I wish all the success to the organizers. It’s tricky to judge strapped and strapless riders equally. They are two very different ways of kiting and require very different skills and possibilities. In extreme conditions this difference is even bigger.

What are you currently working on? I like the challenge of surfing without straps. It gives me more freedom! My main goal is simply to ride the waves and enjoy myself to the maximum, but I want to do this naturally without pressure.

What do you do when not kiting? Lots of stand up paddling in the waves. This is my second sport! With wind or no wind I’m always in the water. I do some physical training on the beach too, with lots of running and strength exercises.

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Any other words of wisdom you want to share with our readers? Come kiting here in the wonderful city of Rio de Janeiro, host of the 2016 Olympics. I promise you will fall in love!

Photo Leandro Pagliaro

How is kiting in Rio de Janeiro different than the better known spots in the north like Fortaleza and Cumbuco? It is quite different! In season, the wind up north is constant and there is almost a 100% chance it will blow everyday. The water is warm and there is a great infrastructure for kitesurfing. In Rio de Janeiro the wind is not as reliable, so you might come for a week and get only two days of wind here. The city is really beautiful though! The mood is great and there are lots of things to do day or night. When conditions are right, the kiting in Rio is amazing. We can get big waves or if you like flat water, just drive two hours up north and you will find more reliable wind and a lagoon much larger than Cauipe. If I were to give a recommendation about where to go, I would say go to Rio. A good trip is about all the experiences you have, and Rio has much more to offer. On the other hand if your only goal is to kitesurf, then the northeast is the best choice.

Photo Rick Werneck

How did you get turned on to kitesurfing? I fell in love with the sport the first time I saw it in 2001 as I had found something totally different from anything I had ever seen before! I have always been very dedicated and competitive and my skills developed quickly. In less than a year I was competing. In my second year I was the first Brazilian Kite Champion.

Age: 30 Years Kiting: 11 Favorite Spots: Rio de Janeiro, Los Roques, Tarifa Sponsors: MINI Cooper, Caltabiano, YachtBrasil, RAJAbra, Best Kiteboarding

GEAR

Boards: Best Armada V3 131cm, Best Shortstick 5’6” Kites: Best TS Harness: Best

TIPS: n

n

n n

Always

learn to kiteboard at a certified school.

Never think you know enough.

This is the only way to live – always learning.

Safety always comes first.

Kiteboarding is not as difficult as it seems and is much more fun than you think!

FREESTYLE, DOWNWINDERS,

WAKESTYLE, AND RACING IT’S ALL IN THE GORGE THIS JULY! KITEBOARDING 4 CANCER July 13 - 15

North America’s largest amateur kiteboarding event directly impacting lives affected by cancer via the power of wind. Kite to win, kite for the cause, or come volunteer and help out. This annual fundraiser draws kiters from all around world for a cause that touches us all. The event has lots of other activities happening as well including live music, food, the Children’s Healing Arts Project tent, and more. Be sure to check the website for information on fundraising, prizes, and other updates!

Contact: Tonia@athletes4cancer.org | www.Athletes4cancer.org

RO SHAM THROWNDOWN July 16 - 21 Now in its third year, The Ro Sham Bo Throwdown is a park riding event which attracts over 40 top international park/cable/wake-inspired riders. Not only are riders judged on their ability to utilize all the rails, boxes, and kickers created by the Slider Project, they are also judged on their style, amplitude, technicality, and variety of air tricks, all while keeping their kite at or below 45 degrees above the water. This year’s event will also have a junior’s division for riders under the age of 18, a wakeskate free ride, and a new ‘slopestyle’ format for the main event.

Contact: sliders@sliderproject.com | www.SliderProject.com

BRIDGE OF THE GODS July 28 - 29 & August 4 The 13th Annual Bridge of The Gods Kiteboarding Festival in Stevenson, WA will be held across two consecutive weekends with a Pro event on July 28 (backup dates July 27 and 29), a Pro-Am team style downwind race from Stevenson, WA to Hood River, OR on the 29th and the traditional Amateur event on August 4 (backup dates August 3 and 5). There is a guaranteed $2,000 purse for the Pro event and between $1,000 and $2,000 for the Amateur event. The Bridge of the Gods Kite Festival has historically been a launching pad for amateur kiteboarders attempting to become professionals.

The Pro and Pro-Am Team events are new for 2012.

Contact: botgkitefest@gmail.com | www.botgkitefest.com

THE SCENE

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1. Bear and Mike Karry enjoy a father-son session. PHOTO PATRICK REBSTOCK 2. Josh Nehf enjoying his other sport. PHOTO DAVE BROOME 3. Paul Roger cruises on Little Cayman. PHOTO HELEN TROTMAN 4. Dimitri Maramenides may have finally met his match. PHOTO HELEN TROTMAN 5. Ella Johnson grabs a beer from the Party Island. PHOTO JUDITH GUILLERMO 6. The 2012 Freeride Gear TKB Test Team. PHOTO PAUL LANG 7. Nate Appel gets ready for the crossing at the 2012 La Ventana Classic. PHOTO PAUL LANG 8. The facilities may be limited, but at least there’s good reading material. PHOTO LARRY 9. Erika Heineken, Marie Leclerc, and Rachel Callahan enjoy the podium at the 2012 La Ventana Classic. PHOTO PAUL LANG 10. Is it our imagination or does Damien LeRoy get shorter every time we see him? PHOTO PAUL LANG 11. Marie Leclerc gets ready to launch in La Ventana.

PHOTO PAUL LANG 12. Neil Hutchinson, Blake Robinson, Vanessa Poteet, and Baja Joe after skydiving above the event to kick off the 2012 La Ventana Classic. PHOTO PAUL LANG 13. Ruben Lenten gets ready to ride in South Africa. PHOTO NICK MUZIK/ RED BULL CONTENT POOL 14. The judges’ tower at the 2012 La Ventana Classic.

PHOTO PAUL LANG 15. Brian and Kyler Berman enjoy an evening read. PHOTO NEBRASKA BERMAN 16. Chris Schey loves his Slingshot Fuel Can. PHOTO PAUL LANG 17. Rachel Callahan and Grom show off their new fire dancing hobby. PHOTO PAUL LANG 18. Wait, who let Damien LeRoy join the dancers? PHOTO PAUL LANG 19. If you see this in Baja do not grab the handles. Just walk away. PHOTO PAUL LANG If you have a photo you would like to see in The Kiteboarder Magazine, send it to editor@thekiteboarder.com.

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Don Montague has been quietly testing the possibilities of pulling boats with kites. Photo Kiteboat Project/Darrell Wong

DON MONTAGUE HAS A LONG HISTORY IN KITEBOARDING AND WAS ONE OF THE PEOPLE INVOLVED IN VERY EARLY KITE DEVELOPMENT. While still working at Naish as the head of R&D, he began to play with attaching kites to outrigger canoes and boats. He’s since moved on as founder of Makani Power, a renewable energy company, and is also hard at work developing kites and boats specially made for kite boating.

We had a chance to talk to Don about his Kite Boat Project and also got a history lesson on the beginning days of kiteboarding.

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Don inspects Makani Power Wing 7.

Photo Makani Power/Andrea Dunlap

Not all kiteboarders know about your long history in the sport of kiteboarding. How did you get to where you are today? In 1982 I moved to Santa Barbara from Vancouver, Canada. I tried going to college, but the parking lot was right on the beach, so I just went windsurfing instead. I couldn’t afford tuition, so I went to classes as my cousin, but it turned out that one of my teacher’s daughters was dating him, so she asked me to leave.

At that point I had $400 and a friend of a friend in Maui. I bought a ticket, showed up in Maui, and slept on my friend’s floor. I worked in a restaurant, made enough money to buy a few more sails, entered a few races, and won.

That led to being sponsored and being able to travel all over the world. In 1986 I became a part of the Gaastra test team. Back then, Gaastra was selling 200,000 windsurfing sails a year, so there was a lot of money available for teams and events.

While still racing, I became the Gaastra Sail Designer. I had a passion for designing things, but one problem is that I’m fully dyslexic. I had no schooling and no engineering knowledge, so I taught myself all the CAD programs and came up with my own ways to make it work. Then I was part of the original group that started Naish Sails and I was in charge of R&D. In 1993 Cory The team inflates a 110m² kite. Photo Kiteboat Project/Betsy Pfeiffer

Roeseler showed up with his Kite Ski system and was trying to convince me that this was the next big thing. I was skeptical. There were a lot of lines and this heavy bar and all these carbon battens, but he was flying upwind. I saw him get worked at Ho’okipa. All his battens broke, and I was just like, “You know, this is just not ready for consumers.

This is cool, but there’s no way we can sell this.”

But then we started noticing the ram-air kites.

Laird Hamilton and some other people were playing around a bit, but no one was going upwind except Cory. One day Manu Bertin, one of our team riders, showed up at the loft saying, “Don, this is it, this is the thing!” He had an inflated leading edge kite that had been built by Bruno Legaignoux. The workmanship was phenomenal and I had never seen anything like it. I had played around with putting condoms inside ram air kites to try to get them to float and had sewn together some pool mats that you would use to float around in your pool, but what we were doing totally sucked.

Bruno was making these as safety kites and was pulling himself around on little boats. Nobody knew about them. At that point, we were far ahead of everybody else on sail design software. I had invested a lot of time, money, and people into developing the most insane sail design software ever. I called Bruno and said, “Come to Maui. We can help develop your kite with software that will let us change a kite in five seconds.” A month later he was at my house and we developed the first kite design software. It was fully three-dimensional, made all the patterns, the whole deal and we became the first licensee of his kite patent.

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The team testing a 50m² kite in San Francisco Bay. Photo Kiteboat Project/Betsy Pfeiffer

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A Makani Power test wing. Photo Makani Power/Andrea Dunlap

Don shows how it was done back in the day.

Photo Stephen Whitesell

Everyone on Maui, including Robby Naish, thought kitesurfing was lame. Robby was like, “Don, I don’t want you spending any more time making kites. We need to focus on the core business.”

There was a little friction, but it didn’t last long. One day I was at Robby’s house and I talked him into trying it. Just 15 minutes later he was riding the shore break in front of his house doing back loops. I already had an established factory in China for windsurfing, so I showed up there saying, “Just give me one person and a sewing machine to make kites. I won’t ask for anything else.” Of course, the next week I needed ten people.

Before we knew it, we had sold something like 20,000 kites in our first year.

I would spend months and months in China figuring out technical kite details.

I think I made like 200 leading edges to figure out how to make them not twist. Kite design was a complete unknown. Eventually I wanted to share the sport with all my friends that didn’t kitesurf, so I attached a kite to a canoe. That was fun, but I wanted to go faster and it was way too wet. We modified a 50’ catamaran to be pulled by a kite. Pretty soon we were making a 30m, 50m, and then a 100m kite. This was around 2002 or 2003. That was the beginning. We attempted to cross from Maui to Oahu, but we broke everything in the process. We bent stainless steel bars and broke large pulleys. There was a lot of force in the channel with 25 knots of wind!

From there we designed a purpose-built catamaran. We did the Molokai crossing and beat all the kitesurfers. This is when I decided that I wanted to go around the world with a boat being pulled by a kite. I started to put together a proposal for Red Bull, but then I realized that I would need to make the kite autonomous. There’s no way I’d be able to hang onto a large kite all the way around the world. Some people at MIT had contacted me in the past to talk about kite design, so I started calling them to ask what would be possible.

In San Francisco I met with some people who were working on autonomous parachutes. Because I still had some name recognition in the windsurfing and kitesurfing worlds, it was pretty easy for me to find people to talk to.

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I started looking for other types of sponsors and also happened to become friends with the founders of Google. In 2006 I presented a proposal for the Kite Boat Project and how the project could be used as a promotional vehicle

to suggest that there’s a lot of power up there that can be harnessed. My friends at Google, who are a lot smarter than me, said, “Don, you should help save the world. Why don’t you concentrate on saving the world and use your kite boat to spread the word?” I said, “I’m not sure if I know how to do that, but I can build a team and get the best people to work on this.” After presenting the Kite Boat Project, I left with a check to start a renewable energy company. We founded Makani Power and started building kites and ground stations, but at the same time I was still building kite boats.

We made a lot of progress and realized hydrofoils were the best way to utilize the kite because of the lifting forces of the kite. It was also relatively dry and I was really tired of being cold and wet. Our first boat was a catamaran that flew on two T-foils and two J-foils. We worked on that for about three years and also built a bigger 30-foot boat. That one had hydraulic steering and we really figured out the kite launching. Then the Marine Science Technology Foundation came along and they wanted me to work on looking at actually pulling ships with a kite.

They provided really good funding and I was able to hire eight full-time people outside of what

Don testing a 25m² kite on the Kitefoiler test platform.

Photo Kiteboat Project/Vincent Felice

was happening at Makani. At that time, Makani was up to 50 engineers. I broke off the Kite Boat Project from Makani and named it KAI (Kite Assist Institute). During the last three years we’ve built a number of kite boats and have learned a lot. Now, I’m going into a new project called KAI Concepts.

The goal is to go from San Francisco to Hawaii and break the sailing record with a kite boat.

What is Makani Power developing? Airborne wind power. Basically it’s a turbine in the sky.

The best way to learn about it is to go to www. makanipower.com. If you map the United States, only 17% of the land is usable for traditional wind turbines. With our system, 70% of the land is usable. This has the potential to be a large source of utility power. We just received another $3,000,000 from the government, Google is funding us, Boeing is on the board of advisors, and we’re affiliated with NASA. In my opinion we’re five to six years away from having a commercial product. This will make a difference in the world.

Your children and your children’s children will be able to enjoy extracting power from the wind.

What’s the end goal of the Kite Boat Project?

Whether I was paid or not I’d be doing this. I

have a passion and it’s the same passion that drove me in windsurfing and kitesurfing. A lot of people in the sailing world have approached me about building kites and working on breaking records. They all know kites are the next big thing. Will the Kite Boat be commercial? I hope not. It’s dangerous.

Well, it’s not so dangerous if you know what you’re doing, but it’s really dangerous when you’ve got something that can propel you and a 3,000 pound boat at 40 knots. That’s some serious load there. People can get hurt.

The goal is not to make and sell kite boats. With Kite Boat, at the moment it’s a really personal goal to break sailing records. You have to remember that I’m also working on Makani, and that is a hugely commercial project.

Kite Boat is a promotional vehicle for Makani that shows you can extract a lot of power from the wind.

If these kites are too complicated and dangerous for the general sailing public, do you see kites being a part of the sail quiver of an ocean-going racing sailboat? Yes. This is going to explode in their world. A lot of the big names in sailing are closely following what we’re doing here.

Do you ever see the technology you are developing trickling down to people that go for a leisurely cruise on their sailboats? That’s a totally different scale. Right now we could develop a system to put up a kite and cruise around at three or four knots. You could then push a button and the kite would be pulled down and stored into a tube or something. It would be completely remote control and fly on a single line. That could happen, but the stuff I’m working on is very different. It’s high performance and will not trickle down to average sailors. I don’t want to sell a kite to someone out there sailing on San Francisco Bay.

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Don and Joe Brock power through a wave on Maui.

Photo Kiteboat Project/Darrell Wong

Do you work with or closely follow any of the kiteboarding manufacturers?

I was there in the beginning, so of course I personally know Raphael Salles, Robby Naish, Pete Cabrinha, and a lot of other people. I know what everyone is up to, but my application is totally different. The loads we’re dealing with are much higher. I’m using Cuben Fiber, a spectra-laminated cloth, to make kites because the loads I’m dealing with are in excess of 2,000 pounds.

They’re dealing with loads of a few hundred pounds. There are very different requirements between my project and regular kitesurfing.

What are some of the challenges in dealing with those loads? You can’t use conventional materials because they just deform. It’s also not just the kite. You have to have a winching system, you have to be able to fly the kite at different line lengths, and you have to make it safe. The kite and boat is a complete unit and everything is related. There’s a lot going on and we monitor everything. We have load cells, string gauges, a GPS, pressure sensors, the boat is basically a lab. We don’t just go out with a GPS to see how fast we can go, we know the exact line load on all four lines and we not only know the pressure in the leading edge, we know how it changes at height.

How do you control something like the kites you are using? In some of the pictures you see me holding a bar, but the load going to me is very small.

I’m really just feeling what the kite is doing. Especially when we’re testing something new, I want to be able to feel what’s going on. I’m also talking to the guy steering the boat and he makes adjustments. On the latest boats, there’s a series of servos that the boat driver controls. Something you don’t see is that we’re actually changing the profile of the kite while we’re out there.

We change it through pressure, but that’s all top secret. The way we depower and turn the kite is sometimes all done through an Android phone. We’re just moving air around.

What’s the launching process like? We have large carbon fiber tanks that are pressurized to 4,500 psi. We’ve also got an A-frame mast.

Basically, you just pull up the A-frame mast, connect the kite to the pressurized tanks, and I can inflate the kite in less than five seconds.

The quicker it happens, the less chance there is for something to go wrong. The actual launch happens within 15 seconds. To get it down, we have a really sophisticated electric winch. The winch allows us to fly the kite at different line lengths. There are days that the wind is only blowing like two knots at the surface, but it’s blowing over 20 up high.

It seems like kiteboarding is on the verge of having a huge influence on the sailing world between what you are up to, course racing, and speed kiting. Yea, the course racers are killing it. On a course board, you can go faster than just about any sailboat. We’ve been saying it for years and now it’s proven. A lot of people on the America’s Cup are kitesurfers. They all know about it and are following it. It’s possible that the sailing world might throw a bunch of money into kite development. There’s no question that a kite will be some part of a sailing around the world record attempt.

To learn more about Don Montague’s projects, go to http://makanipower.com and http://project.kiteboat.com.

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www.undergroundkiteboards.com

www.facebook.com/UNDERGROUNDkiteboards

Rider Enzo Tadiello Board FLX Location NoumĂŠa, New Caledonia Photo Gill Chabaud

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WISH LIST 1. BLACK AND DECKER

2. BOBBLE

4. MCMURDO LTD

3. DYNABAR

Scan for the TKB Review

Scan for the TKB Review

5. FCS

6. M YSTIC

1. BLACK AND DECKER 12-VOLT CORDLESS INFLATOR – Cordless 12V DC air pump that will get you on the water quicker. $114 www.blackanddecker.com

2. BOBBLE FILTERED WATER BOTTLE – Environmentally friendly water bottle with a self-contained filtration device.

Allows you to have bottled water taste straight from the tap. $8.99 to $12.99 www.waterbobble.com

3. DYNABAR V7 SLIDING SPREADER BAR – The only sliding spreader bar that allows you to use your full range of

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motion to attack waves like never before without having to unhook. $180 to $230 www.321kiteboarding.com (US importer). For the TKB Review, visit http://www.thekiteboarder.com/2012/03/review-dynabar-v7/ or scan the code.

4. MCMURDO LTD FAST FIND 210 – Personal Location Beacon (PLB) that initiates an emergency rescue response anywhere in the world. $249 www.fastfindplb.com 5. FCS FCS DOUBLE TRAVEL COVER – Fits 2 boards with fins or 3 without. Get a bigger bag and stuff a few kites in for even more protection. $180 to $230 www.surffcs.com 6. MYSTIC VOLTAGE – Mystic’s top of the line semi-cold to cold water wetsuit with 100% flexibility on all panels.

Available in 5/4 and 4/3 thicknesses. $387.95 to $407.95 www.mysticboarding.com. For the TKB Review, visit http://www.thekiteboarder.com/2012/03/review-mystic-voltage-wetsuit/ or scan the code.

Scan for the TKB Review

7. LIFEPROOF

8. PROMOTION

9. RRD

10. S URF SHADES

11. SPIBELT 12. AIRUSH

7. LIFEPROOF IPHONE CASE – Waterproof, shockproof, dustproof, and snowproof case for the iPhone 4/4S. Adds only 1/16 of an inch to the width of the phone. $79.99 www.lifeproof.com. For the TKB Review, visit http://www. thekiteboarder.com/2012/03/review-lifeproof-iphone/ or scan the code.

8. PROMOTION WETSUITS PULLOVER KITE VEST – Offers a layer of impact protection, upper torso buoyancy, and the insulation of neoprene all in one. $99 www.wetsuit.com 9. RRD AIR SUP 10’2” – RRD’s first inflatable SUP board uses improved board technology and weighs only 25 lbs. $999.95 www.deepbluesports.us 10. SURF SHADES POLARIZED SUNGLASSES – Key feature is the patented leash and collar along with the company’s 12-month guarantee against loss in the water. $39.99 to $79.99 www.surfshades.net 11. SPIBELT HIDE A KEY/CELL PHONE – A very small, expandable, and secure belt that can accommodate lightweight items. $9.95 to 49.95 www.spibelt.com 12. AIRUSH AFT STRAPS – Feature easy, seamless entry and a new double Velcro strap for an even snugger fit. $200 www.airush.com

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EXPOSED

CHARGING Niccolo Porcella charging the winter swell at Jaws. Photo Jimmie Hepp

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EXPOSED 62

FROM HAWAII TO THE SNOW Words by Julien Fillion I’ve been trying to ride this location on the Island of Montreal’s south shore for the past five years.

It’s a condemned parking lot on the side of the river directly facing downtown Montreal. Due to the cement ground, it needs a lot of snow to be ridable. Like every winter for the past few years I came back from several weeks in Hawaii during the first week of March. Usually, most of the snow near Montreal is already gone at this time. This year my flight was delayed by snowstorms over Montreal and I knew it would be possible to ride this spot right off the plane. I called Montreal photographer Vincent Bergeron and we headed straight to the spot only to find the perfect snow, wind, and amazing light. That was a perfect day! Photo Vincent Bergeron

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MAGIC SHOW Being that we are all addicted to kiteboarding it’s easy to forget that there are still many places in the world where kiteboarding is completely unknown. To people who have never seen someone ride before, it can seem like a strange and magical thing. Robinson Hilario puts on a show for the locals in Madagascar. Photo Giles Calvet

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EXPOSED OVER AND UNDER Dimitri Maramenides, ever the showman, convinced Helen Trotman to swim underneath his board for a photo opportunity in the Cayman Islands. Photo Gustav Schmiege

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LIGHTS, CAMERA Photographer Ydwer van der Heide lights up Bas Koole’s night session. Photo Ydwer van der Heide

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TO THE MOON

INSTRUCTIONS: Start the night before by applying the Re-Deck to your surfboard to give you sandpaper-type traction. Load the songs and charge the battery on your MP3 player. Eat a good meal and drink lots of water. Go to bed early.

Pull up to your spot with all the ingredients, park downwind in the shade, and observe the epic conditions. These conditions must reach a level where you are super excited to ride and your schedule for this day must be totally free. Sit there for a moment by yourself and take a few minutes to calm down from the crazy traffic you just went through. Start to put in your mind that safety is the most important thing this day from your car to the water and back to your car.

Photo Epes Sargent

THIS ISSUE, LOU WALKS US THROUGH A RECIPE THAT IS SURE TO LEAVE A SMILE ON YOUR FACE AT THE END OF THE DAY. Following this first recipe will require some careful planning and knowledge of one’s own limitations. So here goes the step-by-step formula that I’ve only tried a few times in it’s entirety. I call this recipe “Baked Rabbit” and the end result is a laugh right before you fall asleep that night.

INGREDIENTS: • One bar of wax • One roll of hockey tape or duct tape • Re-Deck anti-skid traction formula kit and some of that blue masking tape • MP3 player with your favorite songs, but song one is Lil John’s “I Don’t Give a #*%!” and song two is “Dancin’ with Myself” by Billy Idol.

Song three and on is where you lay out your own playlist.

• Halls Cherry Mentho-Lyptus or Grape Jolly Rancher candy and two sticks of Juicy Fruit in your pocket • Shiseido sunscreen (flesh color) • One Tiger’s Milk protein-rich energy bar • Your favorite gear, flight checked and in best working order. I recommend a light snappy surfboard and a 6-7 meter kite on 15-17 meter lines.

• The biggest energy drink you can find chilled to 33°F and a 5-Hour Energy shot

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Put on your wetsuit or rash guard and your harness. Rig your gear and get ready to ride. Go back to your car and apply sunscreen. Next, wipe your hands really well. Eat the Tiger’s Milk bar and sip the energy drink while you strap on your MP3 player. Secure it with hockey tape so it does not fall off in a crash. Make sure you can still shuffle songs and don’t tape it so tight that you cut off circulation.

Take the bar of clean new wax, pull out your surfboard, and apply a coat over the sandpaper-like deck surface. The combination of the Re-Deck and wax is the ultimate grip for your feet. Put some wax on your bar too. For the next five minutes go back to your car, sit down, put some candy in your mouth, and secure some in your pocket. Slam the 5-Hour energy shot and sip the energy drink while you start the first song on your MP3 player. Lock your car, do a minute or two of basic stretching, and launch one friend while you find your balance. Then get your gear and put the volume as high as it can go. Right before you launch, look out into the ocean and say to yourself, “Thank you God for I am the Devil and I ask your forgiveness for everything especially shredding these waves.” If you time it correctly right as you enter the water Mr. Idol will blow your freaking mind and for the next few minutes you will ride like Shawn Richman, Ruben Lenten, Niccolo Porcella, and Andre Philip all in one and your hair will stay dry.

At the end of the song stop riding. Relax in the water. Get your hair wet and float downwind for 50 yards while you remove your shorts. Now is a good time to stuff as much candy in your mouth for an additional burst of energy. Stuff your shorts down your rash guard for later when you arrive back on the beach.

While you are out there observe this one great fact: Nobody will notice that you’re naked until or unless you want them to.

When you get back to the beach put your shorts back on to avoid arrest, pick up ten pieces of trash, help land a few guys, pack your gear, get into some warm cozy clothes, go for a walk down the beach observing the sunset, and thank your Mom and Dad. Go home and be the best father, mother, brother, sister, or friend you can be.

If you follow the instructions correctly you might giggle a little bit that night right before you fall asleep. Don’t worry, this is normal. Stay safe out there and always be funny and be happy!

THE KITEBOARDER E-MAGS

Available at http://thekiteboarder.com/app or in the TKB Store at http://store.thekiteboarder.com UPCOMING 2012 RELEASES: Beginner Instructional Guide, Surf/Strapless Instructional Guide, Intermediate/Advanced Instructional Guide, 2013 Gear Preview Guide

DARWIN, AUSTRALIA. Not quite the center of the universe but it’s at the end of something. At least that’s what it felt like the first time I looked at the place through green eyes like I did 22 years ago. With 22 to 28 foot tides and flat topography, Darwin’s shoreline is at your feet one moment and 1.5 miles away the next. The beaches can be like deserts.

BY DAVID

CASH

PHOTOS B

Y GLENN

CHANDLE

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Coming Upd er The Story of Long Range Leroy

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The crew never thought a two-line email to Best would bring the results for Leroy that it did.

THE WEATHER IN DARWIN IN THE WINTER IS A SPECIAL KIND OF POLITE, WITH PERFECT CLEAR AND RELIABLE BLUE SKIES. IT’S SHORTS AND T-SHIRTS ALL THE WAY, 24 HOURS A DAY. Come summer, the weather is hospitably hostile. First the heat, then the humidity plagues the mind into unexplained fits of mania. Then the rain comes and cools things down but the humidity stays.

It’s damp and awe-inspiring cloud formations move heavy monsoonal rains around a prehistoric sky unlike any other I have experienced.

Darwin is pretty much always hot, until you get used to it. The blinding light and barren expanses mean a lot of space and not many people. That’s ideal if it’s windy and you are a kiter. It is also pretty ideal if

you are a hermit crab for there are millions of them here. Each night they launch an assault from the coast and try to take the city, but daylight comes and they never get far before returning to the leaf litter for shelter. They’ll try again tonight.

of spare time and he started spending it with an 8-year-old Aboriginal kid named Leroy from the Tiwi Islands. And Leroy, with his cavernous smile and infectious enthusiasm, was to have a profound impact on our lives.

I met my friend and his lady in a park the day they arrived. Brett was a self-reliant street performer and Kylie a charming Miss with overflowing generosity of spirit who made and sold clothing at local markets where Brett also plied his trade.

Only doing a few street performances totaling 40 minutes a week, Brett had lots

This is a story about Darwin, Australia, and a young kiter worth telling a story about.

This is not a story about disadvantage and hardship. You can use your imagination for that. This is a story of how caring, support, and kiteboarding can change lives and the things that people do to create a sense of world community. That’s how I see it.

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Leroy (Long Range) with his good friend Karl (Parker).

THE FAMILY It was obvious early on that Brett and Leroy were lining up for a friendship that would go beyond the readily foreseeable future. Brett had been spending time with and mentoring Leroy for about a year before Leroy moved into the house with him and Kylie. That was six years ago.

Since then, Brett and Kylie have had two kids, Macy-Rose and Shiloh, and with Leroy at the center of it all, the family has grown into a caring and solid unit. It was not easy for anybody, even I know that from the outside, but it is always a warming experience to spend time with them. Shiloh is too young to do anything other than drool and fart, which he does prodigiously, but Macy won’t let Leroy leave the house without a kiss. If he tried there would be big trouble. I have watched Leroy carry Macy around, now nearly three years old, and care for her since she was born. The comfort and love between them makes it obvious that they are family.

Brett and I are kiters, so that’s how Leroy was exposed not just to kiting but to the kiteboarding community of Darwin.

Darwin kiteboarders comprise a small and motley crew of diehard enthusiasts that spend many windless hours sitting with a cheery disposition, telling the many stories of varying degrees of relevance to nothing at all. Tales of close encounters with the crocodiles, the potentially lethal Box Jellyfish that plague the waters in the hotter months, the Tiger Sharks, and various curios that are occasionally encountered in the waters of Northern Australia are told over and over without ever losing enthusiasm or flare. These characters were to provide the encouragement and peer group that would be required for Leroy to take up kiting.

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The wind comes in two seasons here. In the winter it’s from the southeast and in the summer from the west. We can kite year round, sort of. Mostly we sit and wait.

When it finally comes, the wind here is of a rare type of pitiful. The warm tropical winds of Darwin lack density so in 15-20 knots it is normal to see people on 14m kites.

But when it is good, there are few places like it with the weather, the space, and the character of the land.

THE EARLY DAYS A three meter trainer kite can present a formidable opponent on the battlefield between wind and beach sand. I know as I watched Leroy fight the battle on many occasions. Leroy took the beatings that the kite dished out in stride, proving him to be a tough and resilient character.

The first taste of ocean action for him was to body drag downwind while throwing the trainer kite around in a way that it behaved like a tethered beast. An eightyear-old in six inches of water dragging for hundreds of meters, over and over again.

Then came the land board which Brett scored from the rubbish shop. He never admitted to being sorry that he bought it but Leroy used to do two-mile downwinders on the land board one after another, and each time Brett would be cajoled into dropping Leroy off and picking him up until it was far past time to leave. “Just one more Brus!” Leroy would shout from the beach as he rolled in. One more it was.

Leroy always wanted more, as all kids do, so Brett moved him on to the first attempts of being harnessed to an old C-kite setup donated by Bomba. I remember the two of them in the water, body dragging, with Brett hanging on from behind. Even from a distance I could hear Leroy enthusiastically yelling, “You ready Brus? Here it comes Brus!” as the eight-

year-old dove the kite through a power stroke that would frighten the bravest of us and pull them both clear of the water, over and over again.

Learning to kite doesn’t come easy, especially when you don’t have your own gear. More so when the opportunities to kite are limited by lack of wind as is sometimes the case here in Darwin. Riding a board upwind takes a while and there are a lot of frustrations to be had along the way. Leroy had his share in those early days, but he always came back to it.

Every community has its troubles.

People who slip through the net, the homeless, those having a bad run of luck, marginalized minorities, and the disadvantaged, disaffected youth. Darwin has plenty of it. Leroy has peers who don’t fit in the system, including street kids that roll by their own agenda. Theft, violence, and the criminal justice system are inherent parts of their lives. It’s common and we have all been affected by it. Ending up in such a whirlpool is a very real risk for many kids, some more

Brett, Shilo, Leroy, Kylie, and Macy Rose.

than others. Kitesurfing is one of the things that can give adrenaline, focus, and goals, all of which contribute to life’s choices. It is all about having choice and that is supported by respect, love, and friendship. Well, it is in this case.

UPWIND By the time Leroy could hold ground, he was Googling how to pull S-bends and handle passes. It was then he came across Shannon Best on the internet and learned of a fellow indigenous Australian kiter based in Florida. What a role model he was for an eight-year-old Tiwi Islander!

Leroy pulled his first back rolls, front rolls, and grabs on borrowed, flogged out gear.

Then something beautiful happened.

Waz, a long time kiter and cantankerous local, pulled an old board from the wall in his shed and gave it to Leroy. Word got around and another mate, a vegan tattooist named Beef that used to live in an old caravan at the back of Brett’s house, got involved. With another tattooist named Blue, they painted both

sides of the board with death art along with an inscription of Leroy’s name written in ink amongst the skulls, ribs, and miscellaneous pagan devilry. It was a masterpiece.

The board was presented to Leroy in ceremonial style, emceed by Waz with the kite community forming two lines for Leroy to walk through. It was pulled off with pomp and mastery, and Leroy was dubbed with the title “Long Range” as his kiting avatar. A few people have made bets with Leroy that he won’t drink or smoke before a certain age. Brett has got $500 on the line. So has Waz. The way things are going so far, Leroy is going to claim the money. I will be there to watch it too.

The Darwin kiters have been a great influence for Leroy. There are tradesman like Bomba, technicians like Stainless, ex pilots (Turtle), policemen (Rommy and Luke), doctors (Kate), nurses (the very Special Agent Johnston), lawyers (Helly), hippies (bloody hippies!), even pastoralists (Eddie the Hat), and bureaucrats (the Bike). Even the Hoff and the Surfer of the

The board was presented to Leroy in ceremonial style, emceed by Waz with the kite community.

Apocalypse from Indonesia (Bobbie) ride with us. Of course there are many others that come and go. They are all gnarly, fun, and step up for Leroy without hesitation.

Fun Supply, our local shop run by Geoff James, is the only kite supplier in Darwin.

From day one, he has been a stalwart supporter of Leroy. The many kindnesses that he forwarded in bargains, freebies, and all-around support shows what sort of person he is --ode to you Geoffrey! With enough miscellaneous bits and pieces handed down, borrowed, and repaired or donated by Geoffrey, Leroy had become a kiter in his own right.

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STYLIN’ UP There are three kiting grommets in Darwin including Long Range Leroy, the others being his good friends Karl (nicknamed Parker) and Mitch (Pivot). All are at equal experience levels and roughly the same age and I can say there is little that is more entertaining than when young lads compete with each other.

With a hand-me-down kite that Leroy had to pay to have repaired by mowing grass and working in my coffee caravan, he has been busting progressive moves in a way that intimidates us old people.

Just last week he threw a formidable air with a triple back roll. The landing was catastrophically and abominably a disaster, but it had all of us watching and cheering in salute. He’s kiting in a way that causes admiration to ooze from the pores. You have to hand it to Leroy. Life presents all of us with challenges and disadvantages, some more than others.

It also offers opportunities but it takes a winner to stand against the negatives,

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firsthand the Best vibe too— the feeling of the characters that work with and run the business including the distributors like Joe and his family. The rest of this story is an attempt to describe that vibe.

THE SURPRISE The response from the Best family was positive to say the least and frankly took us by surprise. Shannon himself got involved. Joe supplied Leroy with a new 2012 TS 12m kite, an act of generosity and recognition that goes beyond words.

Shannon pulled items from his personal stash, including a book on Aboriginal culture that his mother had written, and signed them for Leroy.

We kept the gifts a secret from Leroy.

He knew something was up. He’s always been sharp as a tack but he didn’t know much. Best sent the gear to my house to keep it covert and Brett went about planning a secret ceremony with the kiters to present it. The ceremony was to occur at the beach, at the local kite spot.

Where else?

Brett created a diversion for the surprise.

That diversion was Waz. Waz’s hair is debonair silver so Brett convinced Leroy that the beach gathering was for Waz’s 90th birthday party, figuring that everybody over 40 looks the same to a 13-yearWaz inspects the Best TS that was old. He did so nearly his on his “birthday.” this knowing full well what indignation it would cause Waz and he did take those opportunities by the short it with a chuckle. and curlys, and make the most of them like Leroy has.

Waz is a good sport and took a hit for Brett and I discussed whether or not Best the team. Brett wrapped the packages Kiteboarding could be approached to see and we wrote a card. On a Friday if they might support Leroy. There aren’t afternoon, the kiters and our networks enough success stories for Aboriginal gathered at the shaded beach spot for people in the media and Brett thought Waz’s supposed birthday celebration. that maybe, just maybe, Shannon Best There were two boxes, gift wrapped might help encourage Leroy to focus on lovingly, sitting on the back seat of kiting, so we sent them an email all of two Brett’s car. We called Waz to the center lines long. We didn’t expect a response. of the group and declared it his 90th.

Brian from Best responded and introduced Leroy was sent with Macy to get the presents and they gave them to Waz in us to Joe Millen of Adrenalin Rush Sports in Mackay, Queensland. We got to know front of everybody and stepped back.

Waz read the card out loud and clear: them both pretty well and experienced

Dear Waz, Happy 90th birthday.

You don’t look a day over 80. Please give these things to Leroy with good wishes from the Best crew.

It took a little while to sink in. Leroy thought it was a joke, which is standard form for Waz. Leroy opened the small present first. The book Shannon had sent was in there with a shirt, hats, stickers, and other things. The book had an inscription too, from Shannon to Leroy.

When he read it, he realized what was going on. It was a beautiful thing and we were all glad to be there to experience it. Leroy promptly gave Karl a hat and together they went about unpacking and pumping up the kite.

The event was photographed by my friend Glenn. A year ago, a big-ass tree fell on his house during a cyclone and he and his lady were homeless. Leroy was part of the crew that went around and helped to shift their possessions out of the weather and now Glenn was returning the favor. Leroy and Karl took the kite down to the beach and played “Next Top Model” in front of the camera for a while.

I won’t get mushy but it was all feelgood. It was a situation that opens doors.

Doors of opportunity, of understanding, of friendship, respect, doors to a bigger world, and we were all feeling a part of it. In brief moments between modeling events, Leroy went around and gave quiet, heartfelt thank yous. He thanked me too and he told me that he will write to the Best crew and Joe Millen. He spoke in a manner that made it obvious he did not take any of it for granted.

We sat out there until the sun got tired of us and left to light the other side of the world including Florida and the Best crew.

We all felt good – would have been hard not to. After packing up the gear, Leroy left with Karl and as he got into the car, he turned back with a big cheesy grin and yelled, “Happy birthday Waz!” The irony was not lost on Leroy. He had understood everything including the fact that Waz had suffered such indignation to fulfill his role.

A few of us stayed until late, sitting on the grass with a light sea breeze for company. The hermit crabs launched their assault on the city ignoring us in their determination to get just a little farther than they had the night before. It is the morning after and I am finishing this story.

More than likely, Leroy’s story has just begun and one day in the future Leroy will meet the Best crew in person. I expect that meeting will be on the water.

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15 MINUTES Get your 15 minutes of fame and a chance to win some killer swag by submitting your photos to editor@thekiteboarder.com.

Daniel Perigny flies around with the birds in Cuba.

Photo Ilia Khodos

Paul Roger puts on a show on Little Cayman. Photo Helen Trotman

Rachel Callahan grabs in La Ventana. Photo Paul Lang

John Perry during the Big Air Competition at the 2012 La Ventana Classic. Photo Paul Lang

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Mike Campanaro land boarding on Tybee Island.

Photo Talin Bolen

Rush Mark Rush hand dragging in Panama City Beach.

Photo Wayne Griswold Tonia Farman scores a rare big wave day in La Ventana.

Photo Tonia Farman

Brian Friedmann, strapless one-footer deep in Baja. Photo Paul Lang

Brandon Bowe pumps up the crowd on his way to winning the Big Air Contest at the 2012 La Ventana Classic. Photo Paul Lang Peter Sperling touches sand in Great Exuma.

Photo Marcus Bengsch.

Blair Frank scores near Malibu.

Photo Scott Halley

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ROOTS

Words by Doug Hopkins Photo courtesy North Kiteboarding

This photo is from one of the early Gorge Games, probably in 2002, held at the Event Site in Hood River. Jaime Herraiz and Will James were competing for North and were also in the middle of testing the Rhino II with Ken Winner. At the time, we sewed all our prototype kites in Hood River, so they did not have any logos or printing on them, they were just blank kites.

The prototypes were so much better than the current production kites that the boys just had to use them in the competition. The problem was that the blank kites would not give North any visibility or publicity, so Jaime grabbed a can of spray paint and wrote “NORTH” across the canopy. Most people thought it was our new graphic design and thought it looked quite cool. You can also see that Jamie is sporting a fresh Mohawk, a carryover from the previous evening’s “team meeting.” Everyone got a Mohawk that night, and when Jeremie Eloy was recruited from another brand at the end of the week, he was forced to get one as well.

For more about the history of North Kiteboarding, be sure to check out the book TRUE: 10 Years of North Kiteboarding. Learn more at http://northkites.com

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