The Kiteboarder Magazine Vol. 10, No. 3

Vol. 10 No. 3 KITESURFING TEAHUPO’O THE ART OF EXPLORATION

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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 Amy Robb Online Media Manager amy@thekiteboarder.com 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 Reo Stevens, Brian Caserio, Jake Kelsick

PHOTOGRAPHY Tracy Kraft Leboe, Toby Bromwich/PKRA, Hugo Valente, Felix Pivec/ GoPro, Richard Hallman, Tim McKenna, Lukas Nazdraczew, Patrick Rebstock, Dimitri Maramenides, Damien LeRoy, Charles Ash, Agile LeVin, Jim Stringfellow, Spencer Caserio, Glenn Dubock, Rick Lowrey, Topher Gaylord, Brian Caserio, Andre Phillip, Shabs Kirchner, Gareth Williams, Roddy Grimes, Dmitry Kraskovsky, Nate Volk, Allan Skok, Andrew Nesbitt, Frank Berthout, Ryan Osmond, Ricky Fountain, Quincy Dein, Cole Elsasser, Mario Entero, Stephen Fournet, Jon Malmberg, Toby Bromwich, Alberto Guglielmi, Bernar Biancotto Thanks to all editorial and photography contributors for supporting this magazine!

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contents

Pioneer Lou Wainman sneaks in a quick session on the highly anticipated Wainman Hawaii Maniac C-kite. Photo Tracy Kraft Leboe

Features:

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12 WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH THE KSP?

42 THE ART OF EXPLORATION

16 KITESURFING TEAHUPO’O

54 JAKE AND DRE: ISLAND BOYS

26 KITEBOARDING’S 10%

78 THE DAVE TYBURSKI INTERVIEW

Departments: 10 FROM THE EDITOR

64 15 MINUTES

84 ROOTS

26 PROFILED

66 WISH LIST

86 PARTING SHOT

40 THE SCENE

68 EXPOSED

On the Cover: Pedro Henrique scores an amazing sundown session in Dakhla.

Photo Toby Bromwich

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FROM THE EDITOR Did You See Me? We used to make fun of windsurfers by referring them to as pole grabbers, but there’s been a recent trend of kiteboarders spending their sessions grabbing pole. The funny part is that kiteboarders aren’t doing it for any functional reason – they are doing it so they can take pictures of themselves by riding around holding a pole with a camera mounted on the end of it.

All geared up and ready to score some sweet footy.

Photo Ronnie Lee

While I’m the first to admit that it’s exciting to see photos of yourself, I think we’re crossing into dangerous narcissistic territory with our obsession of capturing everything we do with photos or videos. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to preserve your favorite moments and share them with the world, but it seems to me that we lose some of the fun in kiteboarding when the focus of every session is near-obsessive documentation. It used to be pretty universal that riders left the beach happy if they conquered a personal goal on the water or successfully stepped outside their comfort zone, but now I think a lot of riders consider their sessions productive only if they generated a usable video clip or a photo that will get a few likes on Instagram.

This definitely isn’t a phenomenon unique to kiteboarding. I can’t drive down the road without seeing a GoPro mounted on a motorcycle helmet or the roof of a car. I even passed someone on a hiking trail who had a camera mounted on their chest the other day. Whenever I see a camera in these situations I immediately think of the hours that must be spent on the computer searching out just the right photo or the right clip. Collectively we all spend more time online interacting with our friends digitally, and I think this quest of producing content to share is a reflection of that.

If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is around, does it make a sound?

Likewise, if you finally landed that move you’ve been trying for a year and you don’t have a photo to share online, did it really happen? Of course it did. One of the amazing things about kiteboarding is the ability to constantly set a higher goal to reach, no matter your current skill level. Reaching those goals is about personal gratification and shouldn’t need to be reinforced by people clicking a like button from halfway around the world.

If filming your riding and reviewing the footage at home is what excites you about kiteboarding, then I’m not trying to convince you to stop. It’s great that there are people in kiteboarding who are so excited about it that they just want to share the experience with as many people as they can. It’s OK to want to preserve your glory moments for prosperity so you can show the grand kids just how cool you really were.

It’s also OK to turn the camera off and just ride for yourself.

What’s Going On with the KSP?

By Marina Chang

When a new director was hired last year to lead the helm, it seemed the 2013 Kite Surf Pro World Championship Tour (KSP) was poised to advance to the next level. World class locations, a solid roster of competitors, and a growing livestream audience set the stage for an exciting tour starting this summer. Then came news in June that the Portugal tour stop was canceled followed by another blow in July with the cancellation of the Gran Canaria event. On the heels of the two cancellations, a new managing director was brought on by the KSP board which left many questioning the future of the tour.

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Photo Hugo Valente

Progression is the lifeblood of any sport. While many talented riders are out there pushing the envelope of what is possible with a kite and board, it is generally in competition that we see evolution as professional riders at the top of their game push themselves and their peers to new levels as they seek out a competitive edge. The KSP was created for this very reason. Founding members include nine-time world champion Kristin Boese, North Kiteboarding’s Sky Solbach, lifetime surfer and World Wave Champion Guilly Brandao, and KPWT Champion and kitesurfing icon Mitu Monteiro. Boese said, “Before we established the KSP wave events were only run as second disciplines to freestyle events which led to the wave riders not getting much attention. There was no following, no proper competition, and no platform for wave-focused riders to show off their talents.” Solbach added, “We simply saw a need for surf-specific events. The idea spawned purely from wanting to compete in good waves and give riders on the surf side of the sport a platform in the competitive realm.”

The road to establishing the KSP hasn’t been easy.

For the first two years, Sky and Kristin both put substantial personal funds into the tour to make it happen but couldn’t sustain doing the same for 2013.

Boese said, “As with every ambitious undertaking there were and still are challenges as we build it from a grass roots level all the way up to the recognized kitesurfing world championship it has become.”

There is no doubt that the biggest challenges for the KSP since it started have been financial. North Kiteboarding supports the tour with sponsorship dollars and riders but North’s Philipp Becker wishes more of the industry would step up to support the tour. “The KSP has done an incredible job launching this massive project,” he said. “This tour needs sponsors with budgets from outside the kitesurfing industry, but kitesurfing brands should contribute their financial part and help grow and develop the sport. This can´t be a burden on just a few brands.

If you profit from the tour or send your riders, you should be ready to support the game.”

(Below) Photo Hugo Valente

KSP judge Felix Pivec believes the tour is a good vehicle to promote the sport which is why he is involved. “If you look at any sport, in general a legit contest either makes or breaks careers,” he said. “Only a few elite athletes make it by specializing in a sport without competing and that typically only happens after a particular sport has been established through a tour of some status.

Kiteboarding in waves needs a stepping stone. If the tour could get more backing and the right people regarding organization and judging it would fly for sure.”

Ben Wilson’s brand solely caters to the surfspecific side of the sport. He also believes in the idea of the tour but questions if it and the rider pool is developed enough to showcase to surfers. “I remember a heated debate many were involved with last year on my website with very strong opinions, especially mine,” said Wilson. “The KSP said they weren’t doing the tour to reach out and showcase kitesurfing to surfers, they were doing it to give kitesurfers a venue to compete. If the KSP is doing the tour for the industry and athletes at this point

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“If you look at any sport, in general a legit contest either makes or breaks careers,” said KSP judge Felix Pivec.

Photo Felix Pivec/GoPro

“ There will always be fans and critics on both sides of the fence as to what is the most legitimate competition format and the best way to portray our sport to the outside world.”

then I think its fine. It needs to start somewhere. I have a lot of respect for people who care enough to start something like this.” Ben believes the success of the tour hinges on its grass roots and organic growth. “Look after the athletes and focus on getting the best riders around the world to compete. This is what will create great content and push everyone to the next level.”

So where is the KSP headed? Boese said, “We know we need a more stable financing base for the future in order to secure reliable top-class events. That is what we are working on now and Nico Thiede, our new director, is part of that effort. I don’t think many people have as much energy and drive and are as passionate about kitesurfing as Nico. It is the same kind of energy and excitement that we brought to the tour when we first started it. I’m sure Nico will combine his energy, business success, and passion into a great new ingredient for our tour and will help gain respect and support from riders, industry, and the other associations.”

Nico recently moved to Tanzania with his family where he has a decent break just steps from his home. He knows he has a lot on his plate with the KSP but confidently affirmed that the second half of 2013 will host two events with differing conditions for the riders. He is absolutely certain the KSP will crown a 2013 World Champion in Maui in December.

“The KSP has been very grass roots driven over the past years, which resulted in a tremendously Photo Richard Hallman

committed, loyal, and fun team and rider lineup,” said Thiede. “Now we all feel it’s time to bring a bit more organizational professionalism to the tour which it needs to become more visible and stable without relying on the endless personal support of the founding members. We’ll be back to four tour stops in 2014 and will work on the best setups to make each stop attractive for the riders, sponsors, and audience. Without great conditions there is no real audience and media benefit.”

Boese is confident of the tour’s future but also acknowledges the challenges ahead. She said, “Funds are the most important thing for any successful event and especially for good and professional media coverage. If the sport wants to grow, it needs financial support from somewhere.”

Thiede added, “While the KSP is a non-profit organization, we need excellent media equipment, adequate location setup, good teams and judges, and prize money for the riders. One of the successful drivers of my previous businesses has been the ability to secure financing by ensuring maximum benefits for all involved parties. I am certain we can do this with the KSP by bringing it closer to those who watch it, admire it, and then finally contribute to it financially, making it a great tournament for the long term.”

There will always be fans and critics on both sides of the fence as to what is the most legitimate competition format and the best way to portray our sport to the outside world. Whatever your stance, you cannot deny that the tour has already brought to light some amazing talent that nobody knew about before the KSP like Airton Cozzolino Lopes, the tour’s first champion. Just as the PKRA has evolved into a legitimate tour with a simplified judging system and enough stops to determine undisputed champions, hopefully so will the KSP. You can help support the efforts of the KSP and surf-specific competitors by contributing to the KSP’s grass roots fund raising campaign. Go to http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/save-theksp/x/4407076 to see how you can help.

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Solo Session

at the End of the Road

By Reo Stevens | Photos by Tim McKenna (www.timmckennaphoto.com)

“It’s for charity,” said one of my teammates as he handed me a cold Full Sail beer. From the grassy launch area at the Hood River Event Site I watched the start boat punch its throttle and take off across the choppy Columbia River as nearly 100 kiters began racing around the buoys. It was the start of the annual Kiteboard 4 Cancer relay race that raises money to help cancer survivors get back to living their lives after the tremendous battles they have overcome (learn more at http://athletes4cancer.org).

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s the competitors rounded the first buoy I cheered my teammate on the Patagonia Windbreakers team while waiting for my chance to get a few laps in. I found myself standing next to two amazing people who were there to support the event and share stories of their battles against cancer. Cancer is that cursed word we hear so often, but until it touches you personally you barely comprehend it. I barely comprehend it. Their stories hit me hard and reiterated an idea I believe in but don’t always embrace. It’s the idea of Carpe Diem, of living every day to the fullest as if it could be your last. I can already hear the thoughts of those of you reading this article. “Come on Reo, isn’t that more than a little cliché?”

Probably, but it’s a good philosophy nonetheless.

With my reaffirmation of the Carpe Diem viewpoint, I revisited a few of my own personal goals, one of which was to ride a proper wave at Teahupo’o. I tried to accomplish this goal a few years ago to no avail. At the time I had only a small idea of what was needed for swell and wind direction to make the break work. I faced onshore wind and a wave that resembled an oversized, crumbly shore break. Despite being skunked, that trip was far from a wash. I learned what to look for in a forecast and we stumbled on another quality wave that was a lot of fun and provided a great session with great images. However, it just was not the Teahupo’o I was looking for and I had left Tahiti unsatisfied.

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Undoubtedly the majority of you reading this have heard of Teahupo’o and have probably stared in awe at your computer screen looking at photos and watching jaw-dropping footage of this beast of a wave. I still remember the first time I saw videos of it. Watching surfers ride a wave that I didn’t even think could exist made my stomach turn. If you’re like me and had that same butterfly feeling when you first saw the photos and video of this place, take that feeling and multiply it by

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I found myself rewinding back to the grassy launch area in Hood River, refreshingly inspired by a group of motivated people intent on getting on with living. I felt the

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need to do the same. Carpe Diem.

10 and that’s what you feel while watching it from the safety of the channel.

Now take that new feeling and multiply it by 100 and that’s the beginning of what you feel when you jump in the water and make your way into the lineup.

Riding this wave is something I never thought I would have been able to or would even want to experience when I first learned of Teahupo’o.

From my previous trip I knew that Teahupo’o breaks with swell coming anywhere from south to west but is best on a southwest. The wind blows anywhere from south to east with south winds creating side-onshore conditions that turn more offshore as the wind shifts further east. Ideally you want southeastern wind which creates slightly side-off conditions. This allows your lines to go out of the barrel while still keeping the wave smooth enough to create a barrel. I thought Teahupo’o had enough water moving as to not be too affected by the wind, but this is not the case. In fact it is a very sensitive wave and very slight wind and wave angle changes drastically alter it and make it a very temperamental beast. All this means that it’s a difficult wave to score for kitesurfing.

I found myself rewinding back to the grassy launch area in Hood River, refreshingly inspired by a group of motivated people intent on getting on with living. I felt the need to do the same. Carpe Diem. Quick glimpses at a Tahitian forecast showed me that nearly the exact swell and wind conditions described above were scheduled to hit Tahiti in a few days time. The possibility of revisiting Tahiti to give Teahupo’o another go sent alarms off in my head, but I decided to sleep on the idea of going back. I told myself that if the forecast holds strong I’ll work on the logistics to make the trip possible.

The next morning I immediately reached for my phone. The forecast still looked strong. I had a place to stay lined up. And the airline tickets weren’t as ridiculously expensive as I had imagined. Everything seemed to be lining up and pushing me in the Southern Polynesian direction. It was time to roll the dice, push the go button, and see what happened.

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Roughly 36 hours later I found myself driving an overloaded European rental car along the winding coastline towards Teahupo’o. I struggled to keep my eyes on the road as I rubbernecked towards the ocean at every chance, trying to check out the pumping swell and howling winds. Finding your way to Teahupo’o is surprisingly easy. It’s at the furthest southeast corner of the island. There is only one coastal road and you know you’ve reached the right place when you get to the end of the road where there is a small roundabout and a wooden surfboard sign with TEAHUPO’O written on it.

Teahupo’o has a large bay that is sheltered by an upwind point requiring you to walk across a footbridge and out to the point to launch. The wind was up and I could see a few good ones out in the lineup. I parked the car, grabbed my gear, and started quickly walking out to the point and into the wind line.

Photographer Tim McKenna was already out on a boat waiting in the channel.

Wasting no time, I set up, jumped in the water, and headed out the channel to catch what I could.

After a few successful waves my confidence level started to rise. I began to push myself deeper and deeper on bigger and bigger waves until I caught a set that swung west. I’d often heard of and seen footage of the west bowl and the way it causes the wave to bend in on itself at about a 45° angle. And now I was about to learn all about it firsthand the hard way. With my confidence level higher than it should have been, I set a deep line and kept the angle of my kite lines so they would stay away from the lip and out of the barrel, or so I thought. As I dropped into the wave, bottom turned, and set my line for the barrel, I noticed that the westerly bend was causing this wave to be very different from the previous ones. The clean sideshore winds quickly became more and more offshore as the wave began to break. The dreaded west bowl started to peak up while bending the wave almost directly at me. In my ignorance, I didn’t read the wave correctly.

I was too deep and the angle of my lines was wrong. It was too late to change anything and there was nothing I could do but hold on and hope I could pull through it. If I had been surfing, everything would have been fine, but as the wave’s thick lip started to throw over my head it caught my lines and the drag pulled me up and into the top of the wave. I could see the safety of the channel just yards in front of me. I was looking and pointing my board in that direction, but that was not the direction I was traveling.

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As the lines pulled me closer to impending doom, I did my best to pull against them long enough to make it into the channel. But like playing tug-o-war with a semi truck, my efforts were futile. My body was pulled into the lip of the wave ripping my bar out of my hand as I began to go over the falls

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Reo goes through the roof.

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backwards. I hit the surface of the water with a waterfall of Teahupo’o on top of me. At this point it changed from a normal surfing wipeout to a kitesurfing wipeout gone bad. One of the common questions people ask me is, “Does the kite make wipeouts worse?” My honest answer is that it usually either makes things a lot easier, with the kite pulling you out the back and away from danger, or it makes it a lot worse. This was one of those times that it could have been made a lot worse.

With the bar having been ripped from my hands I lost all control of the kite and assumed it had crashed as I went over the falls. The force of the water pulled me in one direction and the kite pulled me in another. I tried to hold on as long as I could hoping that the brunt of the wave’s force would pass and I would be able to surface and relaunch the kite before the next wave.

However, there was no such luck. The force of the water started to bend me backwards while the kite, still attached to my harness, kept pulling me in the other direction. I made a split-second decision to reach for the quick release, something I had only done once before in a similar situation.

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I tried to hold on as long as I could hoping that the brunt of the wave’s force would pass and I would be able to surface and relaunch the kite before the

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next wave.

Separated from the kite I was left to face my punishment for not taking the time to fully assess the wave and for being unprepared for the sneaky west bowl. After multiple tumbles underwater I surfaced to see my kite down in the water about to get hit by the next wave which would send it over the inside reef and into the lagoon. I was still attached to my board with a leash, so I quickly pulled it towards me and paddled to the boat in the channel to figure out my next move. I knew the boat would not be able to get to my kite as the interior of the lagoon is shallow and filled with nearly exposed coral heads. If I wanted to get my kite back I would have to go get it myself.

I asked Tim, the photographer, what the best way to go into the lagoon to get my kite was. Tim has probably spent more time in that channel shooting photos than anyone else. He told me that I had just paddled away from the only way over the reef. I would have to go back towards the impact zone and get pushed over the lagoon’s barrier reef. This was not what I wanted to hear!

But I was determined not to let this wave beat me, so I paddled towards the impact zone to take a few more waves on the head while hoping to avoid getting smashed and cut badly on the reef. As I paddled away Tim shouted, “Just make sure you stay to the left and don’t drift towards the right! It’ll be bad if you do!”

I made it over the reef all right and found my kite floating in the lagoon still intact despite taking the full force of a few of the heaviest waves in the world.

I paddled over to my bar and put my harness loop back together with high hopes of hooking in, relaunching, and getting back out there. No such luck.

Three of my lines were brutally snapped, leaving me to guess that the Tahitian reef cut them. I rolled up what was left of my lines, flipped my kite over, and started the paddle back to the beach.

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The long paddle through the lagoon gave me plenty of time to reflect on my mistake and it left me determined to get back out there with my backup bar while the wind and waves were still up.

As I reached the shoreline Tim and the rest of the crew in the boat were heading my way. I yelled and signaled for them to head back out. I grabbed my other control bar and rigged back up as quickly as I could. As I headed out the channel for a second time, I now knew what a wave with a west bowl looked like and could recognize when to expect one. I had learned a valuable lesson and would make sure I used the new knowledge wisely for the rest of the session.

I had another hour and a half of wind and waves to myself before a rain squall pushed through and killed the wind for the remainder of the day. I somehow managed to make it back to the beach just as the wind completely died, barely avoiding another swim back to the beach. As I packed up my kite, I took a moment to appreciate my surroundings. Majestic mountains in the background with a rainbow from the approaching squall mixed with the simplistic calm of being safely back on the beach. It was a feeling I will never forget.

On the drive back to my digs I was completely exhausted. Slouched down in my seat I could barely keep my eyes open. I breathed out a sigh of relief and a sense of fulfillment washed over me. Carpe Diem, living everyday to the fullest as if it could be your last. The swell would be on the decline for the remainder of my stay and the wind slowly backed off, but I had completed what I came here to do. Anything more, whether kiting, surfing, hiking, or even simply sipping a cold Hinano beer, would be icing on the cake.

Reo sends a massive thank you to Tim McKenna, Marc-Antoine Bouvant, Baptiste Gossein, Boat Driver Eric, and Mr. Drollet, as well as everyone at Cabrinha and Patagonia for making this trip possible. Mahalo and Aloha!

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The

10%

of Kiteboarding Words and Photos by Paul Lang

It’s no secret that kiteboarding is a male-dominated sport. Data suggests that as many as 90% of the kiteboarders in the US are men. At some beaches female riders are so rare that it can be a complete novelty when a woman does show up. Among many male kiteboarders there seems to be a perception that kiteboarding is not a well-suited sport for women and that’s why there are so few of them out on the water. They’re not strong enough. They’re afraid of the power. It takes them too long to learn. It’s been my experience that those perceptions are completely untrue and women who get into kiting do just as well if not better than men. Even so it’s easy to notice that female kiteboarders can be subjected to an additional set of challenges that most men never think about including unwanted overattention on the beach and a pervasive lack of respect for their skills.

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In Hood River I sat down with a group of female kiteboarders and talked about the status of women within kiteboarding and what can be done to bring more women into the sport. The first question I had was whether they felt women are treated differently when they show up to the beach. “I feel like there’s no confidence in girls at the beach,” said Laura Maher, a long time pro kiter.

“Choosing a kite size is a good example. If the guys are rigging 12s that’s usually what I’ll rig too, but there are always some people who think I should be on a 7.” All of the girls felt there was a difference between how men and women are treated when they show up to a beach. “If a new girl shows up it’s like, ‘Oh, we better keep an eye on her,’” said Ella Johnson. “There’s an automatic assumption that she either doesn’t know what she’s doing or will do something stupid and someone will have to save her even though all the kitemares I’ve seen have been guys getting into trouble.” Jess Salcido lives in Ventura, California, where she grew up surfing and described that her reception at the beach as a female kiter usually goes one of two ways. “The first is, ‘Hey, let’s go out. What are you doing Friday?’” she said with a laugh. “The opposite end is, ‘Oh, she’s a chick, she doesn’t know what she’s doing. This is how you launch your kite. Let me show you how to do that better.’ It’s been the same with surfing. I think some guys are afraid to have their ego bruised by a girl and this is how they deal with it. When I’m surfing I have to get at least a couple of really good waves right off the bat. If I screw up on my first wave, then I’m done. They won’t let me get any more. The vibe definitely changes from place to place and I really didn’t notice it at all in Hood River compared to at home.”

Sensi Graves in Hood River.

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Colleen helps Julia with a quick kite repair.

Tonia Farman and Jess Salcido high-five after a fun session.

Sensi Graves also pointed out that this type of behavior is not limited to kiteboarding. “It’s something you see across all action sports. The guys don’t expect much from the girls and want to coddle us,” she said. “It’s really up to us to push ourselves out of that shell.” As an instructor at Cascade Kiteboarding Colleen Carroll feels she has built a reputation as a very knowledgeable and skilled kiteboarder, but even she encounters this attitude at the beach. “As an instructor in Hood River I’ve taught a lot of people here so I’m recognized as a proficient kiter,” Colleen said. “Even still I run into the ‘Oh, you sure you got that?’ comments from some guys. I think there is a little bit of an attitude at the beach that girls don’t necessarily know what they are doing. We’ve always been told that we’re not as good as the guys, and it’s true that we are physically different.

We’re not going to be able to do all the same tricks as the guys, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do our own tricks.” Colleen was also quick to point out that this attitude can be different from beach to beach. “In Hood River we have more women kiting than in most places and I think that is changing a lot of people’s perceptions around here,” she said. “There are so many self-sufficient woman kiters coming out of the Gorge that men are getting used to them being just as proficient.”

Sensi Graves.

“ There are so many self-sufficient woman kiters coming out of the Gorge that men are getting used to them being just as proficient.”

Lindsay McClure added, “I was at a launch the other day where everyone was hot launching because it was the only way to do it there. I started setting up and the older guys that were around decided I shouldn’t launch that way. They singled me out because I’m a girl even though there were some guys there with really questionable skills.” Rachel Callahan has experienced similar issues but feels they can be overcome. “There are times when I’ll ask someone if they need a land or suggest that they sheet their bar out and they’ll look at me like I have no idea what I’m talking about,” she said. “I’ve even experienced a guy coming in and giving the signal to land his kite, but then wave me off and point to a guy standing near me. As long as you show confidence that you know what you are doing, then eventually you’ll be seen in a different light.”

I met up with most of the girls in this story on a rare east wind day in the Gorge.

Looking for a good spot away from the crowds we met at a small, rocky point outside of Hood River. Calling this little pile of rocks a sketchy launch would be putting it mildly and I was feeling genuinely nervous about how everyone was going to get into the water. I stepped back and watched as the group of six girls calmly set up their gear, talked about the kite launching options, and settled on a plan of launching from the water. Colleen volunteered to swim out the kites and everyone got off the beach with no problems. Unfortunately the wind didn’t last for long and soon the entire crew was back on land. After watching how calmly the group handled the difficult launch situation I asked some of the women if they noticed a difference between the way men and women approach kiteboarding.

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Rachel Callahan.

“It’s not a problem of strength. It’s a problem of fear.

This sport requires finesse, not upper body strength.”

As an instructor Colleen has taught a lot of men and women how to kiteboard and she feels there are differences. “If I had to pick one difference between teaching men and women it’s that women tend to listen better,” she said.

“Kiteboarding is a sport of finesse and women tend to have a little more grace and finesse. Usually they want to see it, feel it, think about it, and then do it. A lot of guys have the attitude of ‘I’ve got this. Just let me try it.’” Lindsay is an instructor as well and feels that “girls are less likely to do something like go out on kites that are way too large for the conditions. They pay more attention to the details and they’re better at anything involving finesse.” Laura added that fear tends to play a larger role for women than it does men. “As a coach I’ve noticed that progression with women is always about getting past fear,” she said.

“Guys tend to push right through the fear where a woman might freeze or slow down because of it.” Ella has also been an instructor and noticed the same trend.

“Women usually come in more humble,” she said. “They want to take it slow, be safe, and be ready before moving to the next step while guys usually want to get in the water right away.”

The conversation moved on to talking about why they thought there are so many fewer women in kiteboarding. “It looks super intimidating,” Sensi said. “If you don’t happen to have easy access to it it’s tough to take that first step of learning how to kiteboard. In snowboarding anybody can grab a board and try to get down the hill. With kiting it’s more challenging. I have friends who are interested, but they’re also very intimidated and say stuff like, ‘I can’t believe you do that.’” Ella said, “They think it’s scarier than it is. When I talk to women who are interested in kiting they usually say something like, ‘It must be so exhausting on your arms.’ It’s just a big misconception. There are completely non-athletic men and women who are kiteboarding. Also a lot of the girls you see kiting are really physically fit and that can be intimidating to girls who don’t feel athletic.”

Rachel agreed when she added, “Women often think they’re not strong enough.

Maybe their boyfriend or husband has encouraged that idea by talking about how hard it is and how long it took them to learn. Actually, it’s not a problem of strength. It’s a problem of fear. This sport requires finesse, not upper body

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Lindsay McClure.

strength like a lot of people assume. You’re basically riding in a hammock and women learn quickly because they tend to be better at things requiring finesse than men. It’s not about how strong you can be. It’s about how gentle and delicate you can be. It’s kind of like art in that way.”

Julia Lieberman was the youngest woman in the group at just 14 years old and hopes to become a professional kiteboarder. However, she didn’t feel that way when she first started learning to kite. “When I was in the fifth grade I took my first lesson and didn’t like it at all,” she said. “I wasn’t athletic and didn’t really like doing anything other than sitting around. I was also scared and felt a little pressured because my dad really wanted me to learn. As I took more lessons I began to feel really independent and I started to have a lot more confidence in myself. Then I met Gisela Pulido and Youri Zoon and watched them ride. It was like nothing I’d ever seen before and at that moment I decided I really wanted to be like them.”

The consensus among all of the women I talked to is that they feel kiteboarding looks intimidating to a lot of women (and men too) who are interested in learning and there is a big misconception that it requires a lot of strength. “It’s not a sport you can grunt and strong-arm your way through,” said Jess.

“You almost have to have a rapport with your kite.

There is the perception that it is a strength thing, but it really doesn’t take much upper body strength at all.” Colleen feels one reason that more women are learning to kiteboard in Hood River is that there is already a community of women riding together there. “A woman surrounded by other women saying, ‘You’ve got this, trust yourself, you can do it’ will learn a lot faster than a woman surrounded by guys who are always trying to do everything for her,” she said. “I hear it all the time from other girls. We’re most motivated when there are other girls on the water. If I see another girl about my size doing tricks it inspires me way more than watching some of the guys doing stuff I know I can’t do.” Sensi added, “It’s way more fun to be out riding and trying to push myself with the girls because when I see another girl do something I recognize that I can do it too.”

Ella Johnson.

Colleen Carroll.

As we started talking about how women are portrayed in kiteboarding magazines and videos, all of the girls wished they could see more women in action. “Seeing girls in magazines and in videos who aren’t just standing there in their bikini always motivates me,” said Colleen. Ella added that often it’s women portraying themselves in that way. “For example on Instagram I see a lot of girls posting photos of themselves half naked with their kite,” she said. “It would be awesome to see more photos of girls ripping, and they just happen to look good as opposed to good-looking girls who happen to be holding a kite.”

Rachel Callahan always smiles while she rides.

Laura added that she feels it’s important to reach out to women who may not be attracted to a sport obsessed with featuring cute, young girls. “It seems like there’s always a group of dudes in a video with one token girl who is basically just the pretty one on the beach,” she said. “I don’t think that trying to show the cutest girls in the magazines is helping inspire women who might have insecurities about their bodies. Women are very visual. If they see someone like themselves doing it, they can see themselves doing it. I know sex sells, but it does hold some women back. It pushes on insecurities.

There’s a small group of girls that will be inspired by the really cute girls who get shown in magazines and videos, but there’s a way larger mass of women that don’t tune into that because that’s not how they see themselves. It’s good to be fashion forward, but being a kiteboarder shouldn’t be about showing your body. That’s not always what is going to drive a sport. Kiteboarding is a family sport.

There are moms here in Hood River who have four kids and the whole family is out kiteboarding. It’s an amazing thing to see.”

Colleen Carroll at the 2013 Bridge of the Gods competition. Photo Jim Stringfellow

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Lindsay McClure gets ready to take off at a sketchy launch.

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Laura Maher.

“ Once you’re out there it’s just you, the wind, and the water. Once I felt like I was in control it was like I could do things that seemed completely impossible just a few weeks before.”

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All of the women I talked to didn’t want to come across as complaining and whining about the status of girls in kiteboarding. “It’s a fact that there are a lot more guys in the sport and it’s going to stay that way for a long time,” said Colleen. “There are a lot of girls who feel like things aren’t fair in kiteboarding; that they don’t get the same recognition as the guys. I’m not trying to take that stance. The reality is that most of the readers of a magazine don’t see a 120-pound girl and decide the board they are riding in the advertisement is for them. I just wish some of the guys had a little more faith in the women kiters at their beach. Know that if she says she’s got this, she’s got this. She knows what she’s doing and doesn’t need to be babied.”

I’m sure many people will read this article and think, “OK, so what? Why is it a problem that there aren’t more women in kiteboarding?” It shows that kiteboarding as a sport is not living up to its potential if it ignores half of its potential participants. Kiteboarding’s greatest power is its ability to affect people’s lives in a positive way, an idea best summed up by 14-year-old Julia. “I’d never done anything like an extreme sport before,” she said. “Kiteboarding is a very independent sport. Once you’re out there it’s just you, the wind, and the water.

Once I felt like I was in control it was like I could do things that seemed completely impossible just a few weeks before. It made me feel smarter, stronger, more confident in myself, and more independent. I feel like I can do something that most people can’t.” That’s a positivity that kiteboarding cannot go without.

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PROFILED

Photo Paul Lang

Tips:

Matt Elsasser

• Have as much fun as possible all the time!

• Be willing to answer questions on the beach. We were all beginners at one point.

• Don’t be afraid to leave your comfort zone and try something new!

Age: 19 Favorite Spots: Maui and the California and Oregon coasts Sponsors: Cabrinha and NP Surf

GEAR

Boards: 2014 Cabrinha PC Pro 5’10”, Skillet 5’6”, and Custom 140 with Ronix Parks boots Kites: 2014 Cabrinha Drifter and Chaos Harness: NP Mission When, where, and why did you start kiteboarding? I started kiteboarding in 2006 in Hood River, Oregon. After watching people kite while my parents were windsurfing it was a pretty easy decision for me to want to pick up a kite. Once you watch someone kite it’s hard not to want to try it.

Learning to kiteboard was definitely one of the best decisions I have ever made and the journey from when I first started to now has been incredibly fun!

Your whole family now kites. How did the your parents and siblings get into it? My dad took a lesson sometime around 2004.

He grabbed the bar upside down and went for a little ride I’m sure he will never forget.

After that he wasn’t too thrilled on the idea of my brother Cole and I learning to kite. Two years later my mom signed us both up for lessons when my parents realized how much safer the gear had become. They decided to learn at the same time.

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Since kiteboarding is a family activity for you do you see a difference between you and your family and other kiters that might be the only member of their family to do it? Having a family where everyone

kites is awesome!

It’s rare that I go on the water and don’t end up riding with someone in my family.

My parents and my sister are often pulling me out of bed to go kite. I don’t think that happens in most families. Sharing a passion with my family is incredible and is something I will never take for granted. Kiteboarding definitely brings our family closer together.

Why did you choose to go to college in Central California? Has the spring time water temperature been tough to get used to? I chose to go to school in Central California because of the consistent wind and waves along with being able to get an excellent education. I have spent quite a bit of time on the Oregon coast so getting used to the California water temps wasn’t too bad. I do miss kiting in board shorts in Maui during the winter though!

It seems that you switch pretty easily between a strapless surfboard and a twin tip with boots. Do you focus your riding more on one style over the other?

While I find both ways of riding to be super fun I focus about 90% of my riding on a surfboard. The evolution of strapless riding has allowed me to mix what I have learned from surfing and what I have learned from

kiting on a twin tip. The level of strapless wave kiting is getting pretty high and it’s fun to help push it along. I think surfers are going to be pretty blown away by what is possible with a kite and a standard surfboard in the next few years.

Do you have any tips for readers who are trying to land their first strapless surfboard jumps? Strapless airs on a surfboard are actually fairly simple. You need to keep the board between your body and the wind at all times. The only way to learn is by starting small. This will allow you to figure out the body control you need to keep the board on your feet. Once you land a few small ones you can start taking off with more speed which will give you more lift and bring you higher into the air.

What is something outside of kiteboarding that most people wouldn’t know about you? Most people don’t know that I have a twin brother who is the main reason I have had any success at all in the in the sport of kiteboarding. We work together all the time and he kills it taking photos and filming videos. It’s pretty cool to have a twin brother who loves to work with me so we can both achieve our goals. My brother Cole is a rock star!

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PROFILED

Photo Lukas Nazdraczew

Tips:

• If you’re overloaded, pack two kites into one bag and use it as your carry on luggage.

• Read various kitesurfer interviews. You’ll learn a lot.

• Don’t forget to stretch before and after kiting.

• Keep on smiling, especially on the water!

Katarzyn Lange Age: 26 Favorite Spot: Cauipe, Brazil Sponsors: Nobile, Colorshake Wear, GoSurf Shop Gisela with her athlete’s Boards: Nobile 50Fifty, Nobile NHP WMN Kites: Nobile 50Fifty attitude, Alana Harness: Mystic Majestic Diva Blanchard with her feminine style, and many stylish male riders. But the most progress I After finishing a graduate degree in make is thanks to my boyfriend who pushes finance, Kasia had many ideas for her me forward all the time. future. Becoming a doctor or tour guide or taking a year off and exploring the Being your first year on the PKRA tour, Amazon were all on her radar, but in the are there any surprises that you weren’t end she chose to pursue her passion expecting? Actually I am really surprised for kiteboarding. The women’s Polish by how nice of an experience it has been!

Vice Champion in Freestyle for 2011 and Before my first PKRA event I was scared, but 2012, this year Kasia started competing it was completely different than I expected. on the PKRA circuit. In her own words The people were nice, conditions were great, she said, “I couldn’t have a better life!”

I made new friends, and I strengthened the Polish Girl Crew!

When, where, and why did you start kiteboarding? In Ras Sudr, Egypt, at the You have a Master’s Degree in Finance end of 2008. I was dating a guy who really and Audit. What does your family think wanted me to visit him for a week during about your current career choice? My his kitesurfing trip. In the meantime I picked parents had some objections at first, but up kiteboarding. It only took me about three they quickly understood that kiteboarding is hours to first learn to ride. what I love and what I’m really good at. Now they support me wherever I am and I can Have any other sports helped influence always count on them. your kiteboarding? I guess snowboarding has been the most influential as well as Are there any misconceptions about gymnastics and my attitude to try new the Polish riding scene? That’s a funny sports and new things whenever there’s subject! I get asked if it is freezing in Poland an opportunity. (isn’t it next to Siberia?) or how can we kitesurf if there’s no ocean. First of all, What riders influence you the most? it’s as cold as England or New York in the Karolina Winkowska inspires me a lot, but also

GEAR

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winter and just as hot in the summer. My local spot has flat, shallow fresh water and is awesome in the summer. We kitesurf from May until September.

What do you do off the water to help you on the water? I always stretch before and after a session. I’ve also started practicing yoga. It’s an excellent way to prepare your body for action.

What are you currently working on? I just started riding in boots and am getting used to them. They give a much better feeling of the board that I really like. My latest trick is the blind judge and I’m learning a few more handle pass moves.

What is something about you outside of kiteboarding that most people wouldn’t know? Somehow I’m good at hairdressing.

Where’s your dream destination that you are dying to experience? I would love to explore some wild islands like the furthest places of French Polynesia. When I was a little girl, I wanted to live in a tree house in the Amazon, so I guess it would be nice to visit there too.

Any words of wisdom you want to share with our readers? Don’t be afraid to do what you love. You will gain much more than you think you can lose.

Reo Stevens BUILT FOR ___________.

Patagonia ambassador Reo Stevens negotiates some South Pacific juice. TIM MCKENNA

39 © 2013 Patagonia, Inc.

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1. Bear Karry and Claire Lutz? Let the kiteboarding celebrity couple naming begin! Our early favorite is Claire Bear. Photo Patrick Rebstock 2. Dimitri Maramenides tours the storm damage. Photo Dimitri Maramenides 3. Damien LeRoy gets a close up view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Photo Damien LeRoy 4. Dimitri Maramenides picks up a hitchhiker. Photo Charles Ash 5. Hope LeVin plays around in Turks and Caicos.

Photo Agile LeVin 6. Alex Fox pushing hard during the 2013 Bridge of the Gods competition. Photo Jim Stringfellow 7. Damien LeRoy on a foil vs. a moth sailboat on foils. Photo Damien LeRoy 8. Everybody in the photo? OK, good! Photo Paul Lang 9. What’s the most reasonable way to settle a tie at a kiteboarding event? With beer!

Photo Paul Lang 10. Grom and Jesse Richman get weird. Photo Paul Lang 11. Team Naish celebrates their win in the team category at the 2013 KB4C. Photo Paul Lang 12. Every North American kiteboarder should make a pilgrimage to this town at least once. Photo Paul Lang 13. Eric Rienstra, Hood River. Photo Paul Lang 14. Brandon Scheid takes a break on the LF party island. Photo Paul Lang 15. Rachel Callahan and Grom after the 2013 KB4C in Hood River. Photo Paul Lang 16. Davey Blair looking tough. Photo Paul Lang 17. “Trains are loud!” says Jason Slezak. Photo Paul Lang 18. Matt Elsasser rigs up in the Gorge. Photo Paul Lang 19. Jason Slezak checks the conditions in Washington. Photo Paul Lang. 20. Jason McCaffrey recovers his sunglasses after they took a dip in his beer. Photo Paul Lang 21. It just wouldn’t be a kiteboarding magazine without a photo of Dimitri Maramenides jumping over something. Photo Paul Lang 22. 2013 KB4C participants wave to the camera on the helicopter. 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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Exploration is a family affair for me. My parents took me down to Baja for the first time in the mid-70s and now I take my son Spencer with me. We’ve been to some pretty out-there places together which motivates me to keep at it and keep my truck in good shape. On the way back from a few of his favorite spots, we detoured into San Carlos because there was a rare early-season south swell.

Captions by Brian Caserio. Photo Spencer Caserio

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BY BRIAN CASERIO | WWW.GAASTRAKITESUSA.COM

Where do you go kiting on a typical day? Do you have a main spot you go to by default? Has that always been your main kiting beach or has it changed over the years?

How often do you try a new spot or look for one? Has it all been done already, or is our modern world making it easier to find new spots? These are some of the questions I asked myself while I was preparing to write this article, and I was pretty surprised by some of my answers. My background has revolved mostly around windsurfing and kiting throughout both Alta and Baja California, but regardless of the coastline, many a beer has been quaffed while discussing all the potential that lies in wait out there somewhere. That truth certainly has not changed, but with changes in equipment, technology, access, and even transportation, the act of putting those brew-inspired conversations into action certainly has.

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Santa Ana winds in 1984. With little sleep after four straight days of high winds that blew all day and night we were wondering just what the hell we were doing there. It’s definitely not all margaritas and mariachis. Photo Brian Caserio

time or another,” I wrote. “All you have to do is stop and rig.” Wherever you are, someone has probably been there before on a kite, board, fishing boat, kayak, Spanish galleon, canoe, you name it. Heck, Juan Cabrillo himself might have named your secret spot hundred of years before you “discovered it.”

But all I have to do is stop and rig? A rocky cove?

This is possible today, but not so much back in 1999 when I was by myself on a 2-line Wipika sans depower, chicken loop, or even a functional quick release.

(Above) Early windsurfing days at Abreojos. Peter McGonagil, myself (yellow hat), Woody Maxwell, and my brother Alan (in the shadow) all waiting for wind. Photo courtesy Brian Caserio

First of all, let’s give credit where credit is due. Even during my exploration pursuits in the heyday of windsurfing, it’s a fact that windsurfing followed in the footsteps of surfing. Similarly, kiting has followed in the footsteps of windsurfing. A large portion of the exploration legwork was already done by the time these “new” sports came along. Where the wind blows, where the waves break, where the roads go, where the protected or exposed coastline was were mostly known, but the challenge was to find spots that suited the new paradigm. Fortunately they weren’t always the spots that suited the old standards.

A quote from an old article I wrote about windsurfing in Central California points out that every location has the potential to be a spot to ride. “Every lumpy beach break, every rocky cove, and every fickle offshore reef has a name and is likely windy at one

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In the early days our goal was to find places we could kite, not really to explore new areas, but simply to find somewhere suitable for the equipment we had. The criteria was a sandy beach. We looked for big, wide-open beaches as far as the eye could see, preferably without trees, logs, houses, power lines, or a hundred sunbathing people on them. Give me sand, and lots of it. But equipment changed quickly in the early years. Every week new rumors trickled in that the Maui guys were doing it like this or like that, and off we’d go to the hardware store to make it so.

Every session was in effect a test, and that peeling wave upwind that breaks on the other side of that kelp bed off that exposed rock could wait for another day until we could actually get there... and back.

Fast-forward to 2013 and what have we got now?

While the holy-grail promise of a launch-and-landanywhere reel bar never panned out, we do have awesome reliable kites with huge wind ranges and total depower, chicken loops, safety systems, GPS watches, and waterproof iPhone cases. Show me the way to that fickle offshore reef please. I have to qualify that I’m not necessarily looking for somewhere to slide on butter, boot off a natural kicker, grind over a driftwood log, or other such things. I’m talking about finding waves to ride with a kite and to that end, in my opinion, the largest leap

forward that allowed us to try new places was the invention of the SLE kite. Certainly the SLE would never have come along without the advent of the 4-line kite in the first place, but still, it was the SLE that changed everything in wave riding. In fact, to be honest, thoughts of giving up the sport completely were going through my head prior to that because of all the waves I was wasting when the conditions were on. I’d wipe out 90% of the time because I couldn’t control the power. I wouldn’t have been doing that on a windsurfer or even a surfboard, and we can’t all be hellmen like Peter Trow or Chuck Patterson. But to the chagrin of windsurfers everywhere, SLE kites came out and now we can kite on any wave, in any wind strength, anywhere. Well, almost, but you get the idea. Of course this didn’t all happen with a snap of a finger. The itch to explore that unridden spot kicked in way before it was wise to try it out, but isn’t that what makes it fun?

In the same windsurfing article previously mentioned I wrote “California has over 1,000 miles of coastal highway accessing a coast as windblown and as exposed to uninterrupted deep blue sea as any in the world.” We not only have good wind and wave exposure, but we also have unprecedented access.

So what do you want, warm onshore mush at Seal Beach or maxed-out shark-infested death pits at Gazos Creek? California has it all. Beyond word of mouth, the way we explored it in the past was to just drive down the road, see what’s at the end, and rig once there. But now you can take it beyond dedicated coastal access points because the sport of kiting is such a great vehicle for downwinders.

As long as there’s a road somewhere a few miles

downwind you can get there from here and find heaps of new spots in between. California is not as suited to this as places like Oregon and Cape Hatteras that not only have seemingly endless beaches but also have shifting sandbars that tend to move the preferred riding spots around on an almost daily basis. Still, it’s still a legitimate way to explore, both then and now.

Of course, the big spots are all already known. If you think you’re going to explore north of Santa Cruz and be the first to kite the previously unknown spot called Waddell Creek, you’re pathetically mistaken.

But one large reason for exploration is to constantly try to evade the crowd, so go ahead and kite off downwind for a few miles. Obviously, don’t do anything like that unless you’re a damn confident kiteboarder and waterperson, have top-notch equipment, and have the proper sense and knowhow to deal with any situation that might pop up.

No, you’re not going to be the first to kite anything you find south of there either, but you’ll feel like it, and that’s really what it is all about — personal exploration, not some Christopher Columbus wannabe kite spot discoverer experience. That’s the type of exploration I’m talking about, stuff you can do on your own or with your buddies that enhances the sport for you on a daily basis. I’m not talking about sailing some 75-foot catamaran through uncharted reefs in the Caribbean or South Pacific in search of nirvana or some other such unaffordable magazine fodder. I’m talking about exploration that’s accessible. And that, reluctantly, takes me to the subject of Baja California.

“ A quote from an old article I wrote about windsurfing in Central California points out that every location has the potential to be a spot to ride.”

Kirk Peterson on a 2-line kite and picklefork board in California. Photo Glenn Dubock

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It all goes so smoothly…until it doesn’t. We had to wait three days for the road to dry out before attempting to go home on this trip in 1992.

Mud is probably the most difficult of obstacles in Baja. On this trip we explored miles of roadless coastline with mountain bikes and found a couple of nice spots. I haven’t been back since and I’m betting they’re still virgin for kiting, so it’s still out there. Photo Rick Lowry

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Photo Ripslix.co.uk (Left) This spot is a long ways from anywhere and requires explicit permission from the land owner to sail or you might get shot.

It’s also a veritable rock garden, freezing ass cold, and has large toothy critters in the water. I’m still afraid to try to kite this place. Photo Brian Caserio (Below) Howie Greene shows us his tent after we were pounded by five inches of rain at the end of a five-hour dirt track in Baja.

Photo Rick Lowrey

Baja has been my passion since well before high school, and while it shares the same exposure to wind and waves as Alta California, the exploration of its coastline requires a vastly different approach.

Kiting off-the-beaten path locations in Baja lagged behind those in California simply because the consequences of messing up with equipment that wasn’t up to snuff were too severe. You couldn’t just run to the hardware store after your session to modify your homemade quick release system, and then there’s that whole kiting around rocks thing again. And I kind of have to laugh here at our perception of advances in equipment. I often hear new kiters say, “Oh, I’m still on a twin tip. I’m not good enough to try a surfboard yet.” Back when I learned we’d say, “Oh, I’m still on a surfboard. I’m not good enough to try a twin tip yet.” I’ll have to blame Lou and Elliot for that, but regardless, Baja requires good gear and a good vehicle.

In the same way windsurfers explored potential in Baja by taking their sailboards to their old surfing spots, so it was that kiteboarders took their kites to their old windsurfing spots. Again, much of the legwork was done already. There’s a perception that early Baja pioneers just turned down any dirt road that headed west and crossed their fingers, and apart from old Auto Club maps, that’s exactly what happened. You needed a tough and reliable vehicle to handle seldom-traveled roads and plenty of extra gas as it used to be scarce down there. Downwinders were not an option so you needed to take the road in whatever shape it might have been in and be able to handle anything you found once there. Not to mention be able to get back out after the hurricane dumped six inches of rain on you.

But for better or worse, times have changed. You can certainly still do it that way, but now you can pre-scout the roads with Google maps. You can see if roads connect or if there even is one that isn’t on your AAA map. You can guess if headlands are too high, rocky, or sharply bent to allow wind or swell to fill in before you walk out your front door. Most of the dirt roads have been graded or improved in some way over the past 15 or 20 years and gas is in good

supply. Campers or surf camps occupy many of the larger spots year round or even have gringo houses plopped right down on them. And if you do manage to get away from it all, you can still rent a satellite phone, even one that gets internet.

The act of exploration can change, but so can the spots themselves, both of which can change our perception of a kiting spot. The poster child of a diamond hiding at the end of a dirt road was Punta San Carlos, first sailed on a stock windsurfer by Dave Tettleton in 1981 and later on proper wave gear by Rich Meyers in 1984.

My first trip to San Carlos specifically for kiting was in 2000 and then just as every year prior to that there was no sand on the beach anywhere.

With our 2-line Wipikas, Naish AR3s, and Flexifoil Blades, it was take-your-life-in-your-hands gnarly, particularly launching and landing. I thought the place was way too dangerous to ever be popular for kiting. Then, for reasons I can’t explain, sand started filling in and for the past 10 years it’s been a sand extravaganza along the beach at Old Man’s, relatively anyway. The place is still very unforgiving if anything goes wrong due to the wind direction and it really can’t handle very many kiters, but launching and landing is not the issue it once was. These are changes you wouldn’t expect.

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I don’t think any other place has had so many ups and downs as San Carlos. It used to be a wild and wooly place visited by lobster poachers and drug runners, but those industries were gradually pushed aside by policy changes and the popularity of windsurfing.

In the early ‘80s it was a dusty and rutted trek to get out there akin to some of the best off-road adventures Baja offered. God help you if it rained hard while you were there. Despite all that it eventually became so popular that it got downright crowded with double-parking along the bluff, trash and toilet paper strewn all about the coastal terrace, people leaving their ugly trailers there permanently, turf wars, and on-the-water tussles. You could still hit it mellow at times, but it was a disgrace at others. I reduced my trips there to a bare minimum. Who wants to spend a lot of time and money, cross into a foreign country, and drive long rough dirt roads through harsh desert landscapes only to find unfriendly crowds and a spoiled landscape? The cold hard reality is that when an area like that gets impacted by so many people, there has to be some sort of control. Some nasty jockeying ensued to gain that control and the person who came out the other side victorious, fortunately in my opinion, was Kevin Trejo and his SoloSports windsurfing camp. His vision was to keep the place a true adventure destination, preserving at least the spirit of exploration for those who chose to drive in, but also being able to make money for his business and the Ejido owners by operating a fly-in camping resort. Today the place is clean and beautiful again, which is so refreshing because it truly is a magical place.

“ With the advent of strapless riding and the absolutely mental maneuvers being performed both on the way in and the way out by guys like Patrick Rebstock and Ian Alldredge, kiters are literally changing their perception of what kind of spot they’re looking for.”

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Don’t ignore strange noises coming from the undercarriage of your vehicle. JR Stit looking on while I see how much grease I can get on my hands. We must have fixed the problem because we did make it home. Photo Topher Gaylord

Somehow San Carlos lived through that phase and emerged the better for it. The same cannot be said for many other marquis spots. The abolition of the Ejido (cooperative) system in Baja in 1989 by President Salinas paved the way for foreigners to own land in Mexico, which resulted in Americans building houses right smack dab on some of the most famous points in Baja. Scorpion Bay and Abreojos were both ruined as a true Baja experience as a result, to say nothing of the entire Cape area. These are changes, unfortunately, that you would expect.

Before I make myself too sad, rest assured that there’s plenty of exploration left to do in Baja, particularly as it relates to kiteboarding. And there is another unexpected change that is affecting exploration —­a change in the act of kiteboarding itself.

With the advent of strapless riding and the absolutely mental maneuvers being performed both on the way in and the way out by guys like Patrick Rebstock and Ian Alldredge, kiters are literally changing their perception of what kind of spot they’re looking for. Side-offshore, down-the-line wave riding proves to be pretty limiting and boring for this type of riding while sideshore and side-onshore spots are the new playgrounds. I cannot tell you how many spots this opens up for exploration.

So things have changed, but it’s still out there in spades. It takes time, effort, money, preparation, and a willingness to bypass your favorite spot when it’s going off. Just this year alone I kited four great new spots. No, I’m not going to tell you where they are. One of the sessions I’d almost call world-class, but that spot doesn’t really receive consistent swell or wind so you’re not going to just go down there and hit it every time. In that respect you probably can’t really even call it a kite spot. But man was it good the day I was there. That’s the type of exploration I’m talking about. And that’s never going to change.

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TKB FALL/WINTER TRAVEL GUIDE

Featuring 30 Must Visit Kite Destinations

Flat Water, Waves, Budget, Luxury, Beginner, FAMILY

Available at http://store.thekiteboarder.com or http://thekiteboarder.com/app

Guide to Baja Businesses: LA VENTANA DOWNWINDER INN features six rooms conveniently located near great beach launches. Each room has a queen bed, storage shelves, personal refrigerator, coffee maker, and complete bathroom with hot shower for $50/night. Roof tops offer amazing views and the outdoor community dining area has everything you need to make quick or gourmet meals. Complimentary cars for local transportation and daily downwind shuttle service are also offered. www.downwinderinn.com

ELEVATION KITEBOARDING’S goal is that each and every student has an amazing experience when booking their services.

From radio-assisted lessons with waterproof radio helmet systems to watercraft-assisted lessons, their IKO certified and insured instructors customize all lessons to their student’s needs using the latest equipment from North and Mystic. www.elevationkiteboarding.com

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EF BLOCK Building your dream or vacation home in Baja? The patent-pending EF Block transforms standard recycled polystyrene and plastics into durable, fire-resistant, and highly insulative blocks that are easy to stack and shape into just about every construction design you can imagine. The EF Block will have an everlasting positive impact on your lifestyle and our environment through strength in construction, thermal energy savings, and the recycled use of materials that would otherwise be sent to landfills.

EF Block is quick and easy to construct and, once constructed, various fascias can be applied to customize the appearance of finished walls. www.efblockmx.com PALAPAS VENTANA is located upwind of the main riding area where waves often break when there is swell or a strong El Norte.

You’ll know you’re there when you see the palapa roofs of their quaint casitas with large porches, each overlooking the Sea

of Cortez and Cerralvo Island. Lodging includes breakfast and lunch served at the restaurant/bar located just above the launch area. Stop in for a killer espresso and WiFi. Sport fishing, whale shark tours, diving excursions, the infamous hot dog tour, and day trips to the island or Pacific side also available. www.palapasventana.com

VENTANA BAY RESORT is located halfway between the main town and the hot springs. Offering beachfront rooms and private bungalows nestled in a beautiful desert landscape, their on site private restaurant serves amazing and healthy meals which are anticipated by both locals and guests alike. Guests can keep to themselves on their private patio or join others for a cocktail at the clubhouse overlooking the bay. The Resort also offers a semi-private beach for launching/landing, lessons, gear rental, mountain bikes, snorkeling equipment, and kayaks. www.ventanabay.com

LOS BARRILES HOTEL BUENAVISTA is located just five minutes outside of Los Barriles where the wind can be stronger and the waves bigger and better, especially when an El Norte blows through.

Just steps from your door is a semi-private wide sandy beach providing plenty of space to launch and land with miles of open water to ride. A daily shuttle to North Beach in Los Barriles will allow you to downwind back to the property where you can end your day in the natural hot spring jacuzzi or enjoy a drink at the swim-up bar. The family-run resort offers meal plans where you can order directly off the menu, including a take away lunch if you plan to be away for the afternoon. The host hotel for the 2014 Lord of the Wind, you’ll also be right on the spot to enjoy all the event festivities. www.hotelbuenavista.com VELA KITESURF has been creating and perfecting the windsports resort experience for over 30 years. Whether you are looking for long tropical beaches with reliable sideshore winds, perfect flat water, or good surf breaks, Vela offers stand alone lessons or packages with gear, lessons, and lodging options at 13 wind-driven destinations around the world. The Los Barriles location offers lessons and two lodging options which can include meals or not. If an El Norte is pumping, Vela has exclusive use of a nearby wave spot accessed only with a key to the locked gate and a 4WD vehicle. If you’re into mountain biking, Vela invites you to find better trails anywhere on the peninsula. They also rent boards so you can leave your deck at home! www.velakitesurf.com

• $50/night

EXOTIKITE has been teaching kiteboarding in Los Barriles since 1998. An IKO certified/insured school with experienced instructors offering jet ski lessons and rescue, radio helmet instruction, and a guaranteed safe, successful, and enjoyable learning experience, they operate year round. Other services include kite/SUP rentals and tours, snorkeling, surfing, kayaking, and accommodations. New for 2013/2014: The shop and school are now all in one beachfront spot, just upwind from the old school location! www.losbarrileskiteboarding.com

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Island Boys

By Jake Kelsick

The Kiteboarding Life in Antigua I’m a self-confessed kite-o-holic.

At the age of 20 I think I have literally spent more time on or in the ocean than on land. I live on the island of Antigua and like most islanders my daily plans are dictated by the weather forecast. While others pray for the steady trade wind breeze just to cool the Caribbean heat, I rely on it to power my passion. Life in Antigua for me means a typical day ends by checking the conditions for the following day. I wake daily with anticipation of a solid 18-20 knots of wind. I don’t need to set an alarm clock. The distinctive rustle of palm leaves outside my window wakes me up.

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Andre Phillip and Jake Kelsick at home.

Photo Shabs Kirchner

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his routine has become my way of life and is one I dare not take for granted.

While there are plenty of so-called first-world luxuries we go without in our small twin-island state of Antigua and Barbuda, the abundance of wind and salt water has molded my identity.

Photo Andre Phillip

Nestled in the Leeward Island chain, Antigua is home to just over 100,000 people sharing 108 square miles of land.

Visitors flock here to get away from their day-to-day worries. With its 365 beaches you can be forgiven for feeling at times that you are the only one on this rock we call home. I live in a vacation destination which is something I’m sure a lot of people dream about. The reality though is that most locals stay busy working indoors with nine-to-five jobs and are far removed from the sun, sea, and sand.

For most islanders living in a vacation destination doesn’t mean you get to live your life on vacation. Kitesurfing is more of a novelty here than a pastime with only a handful of locals who regularly kite, including our very own legend Andre “Dre” Phillip and myself.

Kiteboarding arrived in Antigua with the opening of Kitesurf Antigua in 1999. Operating as a kite school at Jabberwock Beach, Kitesurf Antigua was founded by former Olympic windsurfer Eli Fuller. Eli had returned from his travels with kite gear and introduced Dre to kitesurfing soon after opening the school. Kiting quickly took the small Antigua windsurfing community by storm. All the guys that kite now are ex-windsurfers, including Dre. When the sport first hit the island it was very appealing because you needed less wind, the gear was smaller, and it looked like a lot of fun. Most of the windsurfers ended up ditching their old windsurf gear for a set of sketchy new kite gear and stumbled through the process of learning to ride the early equipment.

I was 10 years old when I was first introduced to the sport. I was just a skinny little kid and not even heavy enough to hold down a kite yet. I used to dabble a little in football and cricket and I was also into karate and skimboarding, but kiting was a complete game changer for me. I first gave kiting a go in 2003 and by 2004 I felt like I was getting pretty serious with it.

Luckily Dre and I connected pretty early on. He was already traveling and growing his career as a pro kiteboarder and I really looked up to him. He was so much better than me and appeared to be living the dream! Dre was like a rock star and I wanted to be just like him.

Photo Andre Phillip

As his career progressed I saw firsthand what he was doing with kiteboarding. Dre was one of the main riders pushing the early boot movement, which was

Photo Roddy Grimes

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Photo Gareth Williams

Dre hanging with the groms in the early days. Photo Tracy Kraft Leboe

“Even though the kite scene is small in Antigua I wouldn’t trade it for anywhere else. Sometimes it’s almost like we have the entire island to ourselves.”

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given a massive boost in 2005 when the Autofocus DVD came out. Autofocus was one of the first showcases of what wakestyle riding is all about – building obstacles and throwing down in boots with your kite low. A lot of the guys promoting the wakestyle movement back then were way before their time and it has taken until recently for wakestyle riding to become a strong part of kiteboarding. Watching Dre push the boundaries of what was possible with a kite as the sport developed really motivated me to stick with it and made me believe that I could go places with kiteboarding.

By the age of 12 I decided that I was going to do my best to follow in Dre’s footsteps. Once he saw that I wasn’t going to leave him alone, Dre took me under his wing and gave me all the help I needed. He was always building new obstacles so I got to hit kickers and rails pretty early on. Not a lot of young riders have access to obstacles and even fewer have access to someone to encourage them to go for it. Dre has been a huge mentor to me both on and off the water and remains a great friend and mentor to this day. No matter what is going on I can always look to him for advice.

When I look at kiteboarding now I am amazed by how much it has changed.

Just a few years ago it was rare to meet other riders with boots mounted to their boards. Today so many more riders wear them and push the wakestyle side of the sport, even the top guys on the PKRA tour. Now you can go places and find a rat pack of kids wearing boots and some have even built obstacles.

The really cool part is that this is attracting a younger group of riders to the sport. Learning to ride under the watchful eye of Dre it was easy to see the direction he wanted the sport to go and it’s been amazing to see that vision come to life.

Dre has been a huge influence on me, but my dad Russell has been my biggest supporter. He has always been a waterman and was heavily into windsurfing years before I was born. Now we get to share that feeling of stoke with kiting.

He has been dedicated to taking me back and forth to the beach, launching my kites, and allowing me to spend a lot of time on the water from the very beginning. He bought my first kite from Dre, an old 5.5m Naish that I used until it exploded on the beach one day. My first board was something called the Clam, which was the cool board to have in Photo Andre Phillip Antigua back then.

In my opinion Antigua is one of the best places in the world for people to learn and get into kiteboarding. Jabberwock Beach brings local, regional, and international kiters together to create a cool scene, but for the most part it’s relatively quiet here with lots of room for everyone to get out on the water and have a good time. The beach is shaped like a crescent moon with onshore wind, so if you run into trouble you’ll just end up back on the sandy shore. The busy season for kiting coincides with our tourism season, which is the main industry in Antigua. From November to June or July is when most tourists, both kiting and non-kiting, come to Antigua. The island is also one of the top yachting destinations in the Caribbean and yachting season kicks off every year with the Antigua Charter Yacht Show in the beginning of December. The kite scene quite often picks up at this time as a lot of the yacht crews either already kite or want to learn. From the captains all the way down through the crew, almost everyone on board the fancy yachts tries to get away from work to go kiting!

With the annual influx of visitors Kitesurf Antigua has just over six months to get in as many rentals and lessons as they can before the season is over and our beaches go back to feeling deserted.

Although we get cruise ships stopping by with thousands of passengers at a time on some days, we usually only see curious tourists from the hotels passing by. We always welcome new and visiting kiters with open arms, but just like any beach in the world we get the occasional jerk on vacation who thinks he owns our spot.

I could do without those guys as it’s amazing to see how one rider with a bad attitude can ruin the vibe on the whole beach.

Even though the kite scene is small in Antigua I wouldn’t trade it for anywhere else. Sometimes it’s almost like we have the entire island to ourselves. We get to go out and explore different parts of the island and all we have to worry about is if it’s going to be windy enough.

We can set rails up wherever we want and never have to worry about

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Photo Andre Phillip

kites getting in the way or people telling us we can’t kite here. At times it feels like the whole island is our own personal playground!

On the flip side, as a pro kiteboarder living in Antigua I need to travel a lot.

Without getting on a plane and getting out there no one will ever see me ride.

Living on an island that feels like our own playground is great at times, but it’s hard to get very much coverage as a pro kiter when there’s barely anyone else around. Even though we have some of the best conditions imaginable, both Dre and I spend a considerable amount of time flying to other places to connect with the kite scene in the rest of the world. If you’re not in the mix with other top riders then there is nobody else to bounce ideas off of. It’s also tough to stay motivated to keep pushing to learn new tricks when you don’t see what other pro riders are doing. My first real travel experience was for the 2009 REAL Triple S competition and I have been back almost every year since then.

Over the years quite a few pro kiters have passed through Antigua. Back in 2004/2005 during the filming of the Metropolis and Autofocus DVDs a lot of top riders came down. Mauricio Abreu, Bertrand Fleury, Moehau Goold, Jason Stone, Jason Slezak, and Tuva Jansen all visited Antigua while Elliot Leboe and Tracy Kraft Leboe were shooting. Those were some really memorable moments for me as a young kid. Not only did I get to meet some of my heroes, but I also had the chance to ride with and feed off of some of the best kiteboarders in the world at the time. Susi Mai has also stopped by a few times and Sam Light came down last year to shoot the online viral sensation Island Time video (http://youtu.be/6PtIg5IbeLg).

Ever since I joined Ozone as a team rider in 2012 I’ve had a platform to penetrate the international kite scene and it’s really helped me be at the top of my game.

Recently I’ve been collaborating with Tona boards which has further solidified

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both Antigua and my place in the sport. Everyone involved in the brand has roots in Antigua so we are like a family. I’ve been extremely lucky in that my sponsors have allowed me to stay away from the mainstream competition circuit and instead I get to embrace the lifestyle of the sport.

What else can I say about Antigua? It has been a great place to live and ride. While Antigua looks like paradise to those from the outside it’s not without its shortcomings, but if my travels have taught me anything it’s that every place in the world has its own pros and cons. Sometimes it feels like we’re cut off from the rest of the kiteboarding world down here, but every time I travel somewhere else I feel extremely lucky when I return home to find the whole beach to myself.

It’s easy to convince yourself that the grass is greener elsewhere, but I really feel it’s important to learn to embrace where you are. It’s hard for me to imagine a better place to have to embrace than Antigua.

You can get a taste of the island life by connecting with Dre and Jake online. A good place to start would be by following them on Instagram at @JakeKelsick and @AndrePhillip.

Photo Andre Phillip

now available www.airtstyle.tv

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NEW DESTINATIONS INCLUDING ...

VELA HATTERAS VELA TOBAGO AND MORE COMING SOON!

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15 minutes Doug Bixel at Lake Wenatchee in the Cascade Mountains where the water temperature was a cool 47Âş F. Photo Dmitry Kraskovsky

This issue’s winning photo (above) takes home a Trucker Hat from Patagonia.

Send your photos to editor@thekiteboarder.com to get your 15 minutes of fame and a chance to win something from Patagonia.

Kyle Flower gets away from the office in Maui. Photo Nate Volk

Mike Stamper grabs at sunset in Hatteras. Photo Allan Skok

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Mikey Roy in the Outer Banks. Photo Charles Ash

Billie Kipling at the 2013 Bridge of the Gods competition in Stevenson, Washington. Photo Jim Stringfellow

James Ropner in Hood River. Photo Paul Lang It might not look cold in this photo, but when Steven Novak returned to the beach in Michigan his depower system was completely frozen. Photo Andrew Nesbitt

Chris Lazinski goes big in Hood River. Photo Paul Lang

Sean Buell at the REAL slick.

Photo Ryan Osmond

Mia Pitt, just 14 years old, in Maui.

Photo Frank Berthout

Coco Trigo in Puerto Rico. Photo Ricky Fountain

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wish list

1. axis

2. liquid force

3. ion

4. mystic boarding 5. weatherflow

6. np

Scan for the TKB Review.

1. AXIS 2014 PORON XDR FOOTSTRAP SYSTEM — Axis

offers a great pad/strap setup with the Poron XDR. It’s easy to adjust, lightweight, and well made. $169, www.axiskiteboarding.com

2. LIQUID FORCE SYNERGY BINDINGS — The stiffest, most supportive boot in the LF lineup for the true wakestyle rider. Updated for 2014 to provide more comfort. $419.99, www.liquidforcekites.com

3. ION STRIKE 4/5 DL WETSUIT — Progressive styling with the latest neoprene technology makes for a warm and stretchy suit. $299, www.ion-products.com

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4. MYSTIC BOARDING 2014 POLAR SNOW HARNESS This harness has a narrow profile to allow movement and accommodate bulky winter layers. $179.95, www.mysticboarding.com 5. WEATHERFLOW WIND METER — Take and share wind reports anywhere by accurately recording the wind speed, wind direction, and location on your smart phone. For the TKB Review visit www.thekiteboarder.com/2013/08/ weatherflow-windmeter-review or scan the code. $34.95, www.weatherflow.com/windmeter

6. NP NEO HOODIE — This 2mm pullover hoodie is great for extra warmth and has a reinforced harness hook hole for your spreader bar. $149, www.npsurf.com

7. patagonia 8. pks distribution

9. prolimit

12. wind chaser sports 11. underwave 10. slingshot sports

Scan for the TKB Review.

7. PATAGONIA R3 NEOPRENE DRYSUIT — Performance, flexibility, and warmth for extreme cold water kiting. Can be worn with additional layers. $699, www.patagonia.com

8. PKS DISTRIBUTION GOPRO STRUT MOUNT — Easily capture those overhead shots. This easy-to-mount system features padding and 2” webbing for stability. $34.95, www.pksdistribution.com

9. PROLIMIT PREDATOR HARNESS — The medium-high back allows for more back bend during extreme tricks while the higher sidewall protects your ribs. $209, www.prolimit.com

10. SLINGSHOT SPORTS SUP HP INFLATOR VALVE — This high pressure valve allows you to use a compressor to pump up your inflatable SUP to the recommended PSI without the labor. $24.99, www.slingshotsports.com 11. UNDERWAVE IMPERIAL VACUST WAIST HARNESS — Updated for 2014 this harness has a custom feel with excellent support and comfort. $239, www.underwave.us

12. W IND CHASER SPORTS HIGH PRESSURE PORTABLE PUMP — This dual-action digital pump inflates your kite to your designated pressure and stops automatically. For the TKB Review visit www. thekiteboarder.com/2013/08/electric-kite-pump-review or scan the code. $229.99, www.windchasersports.com

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exposed KB4C The seventh annual Kiteboarding for Cancer held in Hood River, Oregon, was a huge success, raising a total of $100,038. Funds raised by this event help support Athletes 4 Cancer’s Camp Koru Survivorship Program for young adults with cancer. Learn more, including how to get involved, at http://athletes4cancer.com. Photo Paul Lang

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exposed window Swimming with a camera in waves while trying to shoot photos of kiteboarders is not easy, but the unique views can be completely worth the effort. Here photographer Mario Entero fires off one more frame of Matchu Lopes Almeida as he passes by in Mauritius. Photo Mario Entero

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knock on wood Sam Medysky gets creative and has a little bit of fun with the landscape in Turks and Caicos. Photo Quincy Dein

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LOW WATER “The water level has been fluctuating quite a bit lately in Hood River,” said Brandon Scheid. “When we saw the shallow flat water pool downwind of the sandbar we knew it was time to set up the infamous Big Black rail. It was really fun trading off hits in the park with other riders even though the water was knee deep and the consequences were high. Just another day in the Hood.” Photo Cole Elsasser

SUNDOWNER Tom Court makes the most out of fading wind and fading light as he finishes the day with a flat water session in Mauritius. Photo Mario Entero

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ON THE LINE The Columbia River Gorge is a great place for kiteboarding because of the dependable summer winds, but it can also be a place of breathtaking beauty. Here Jason Slezak has a little fun with the river swell almost exactly on the border between Oregon and Washington. Photo Paul Lang

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Tybo

By Paul Lang

As one of kiteboarding’s original pro

If you were riding in the early 2000s you definitely saw his photo and name in a lot of magazines, but Dave has spent the last few years mainly working behind the scenes. We had a chance to talk to Tybo between PKRA tour stops to ask about his long history in the sport.

Let’s start at the beginning.

How and why did you begin kiteboarding?

My dad had sailboats when I was growing up and one time he bought an old windsurfer. I played around with that as I was a kid, but I was never very into it. I went to college in North Carolina and was into surfing, skating, and music before I moved out to California to get a master’s degree and made some friends who were windsurfers. Before then I had no idea what could actually be done windsurfing. I didn’t think it could be any different than when I was putting around as a kid.

I went to a windsurfing swap meet in the bay area to try to get some gear, and someone there had a magazine with kiteboarding in it. I picked that up and was just amazed. There was a guy there selling his windsurfing gear so he could get kite gear. This was probably 1996 or so. I bought a mast or something at the swap meet but I went home and started looking for information about kiting on the internet. I found a guy who had got a few of the original Wipika 5.0s from Maui. I connected with him, spent a stupid amount of money on one of the kites, and we went to Crissy Field where he showed me how to set it up. It probably took me two years to really figure it out. I glassed inserts into an old single fin surfboard and just terrorized the lagoon near where I lived.

I was completely out of control most of the time.

Eventually I thought about starting a school since I was looking for a business to start after finishing my business degree. I got some more gear and got better and better as the gear improved.

I dove into starting a school in Hood River and once the school was running I got a little more recognition.

Kiteboarding was really starting to take off and I began competing in the early events. I did all the events I could do in the US which was basically just one or two and I did really well. Around 1999 or 2000 Wipika moved to Hood River and brought me on as a team rider. I started doing some of the international events and rolled straight into what was the first year of the PKRA tour.

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kiteboarders Dave “Tybo” Tyburski has one of the longest running careers in kiteboarding. He’s been involved in every aspect of the sport and continues to travel the world through his involvement with the PKRA tour. Tybo has not only been a top rider but he has also been heavily involved in product R&D for more than a decade as well as a pioneering kiteboarding instructor, event planner, announcer, and event judge.

Dave Tyburski is one of the very few people who have managed to stay involved in the kiteboarding industry for more than a decade.

Photo Stephane Fournet

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Photo Toby Bromwich/PKRA

Tybo in the early days. Photo courtesy Dave Tyburski

How were you received in Hood River as the new guy in town who was going to teach this weird new sport?

When I moved to Hood River I went to the windsurfing shops to introduce myself and tell them what I wanted to do. There wasn’t a lot of knowledge about kiteboarding. No one carried any gear. There were maybe four or five kiters in the Gorge total, one being Cory Roesler riding his rigid spar kite ski kites.

Kiteboarding was banned from all Port of Hood River property; you couldn’t do it anywhere in town. I think it was pretty well-received from the get go, but there were definitely a lot of doubts from some people. The port was really apprehensive due to safety concerns and conflicts with other water users, but about a year after they banned kiteboarding in Hood River they decided to open a launch for us.

Unfortunately the first spot where it was allowed was the end of the Hook, probably the most dangerous and sketchy launch possible in town. That opened a whole additional set of safety concerns. There was just a lack of comprehension of the dangers of the sport by the people trying it and a lack of knowledge among the people who were regulating it. Luckily at about the same time there was a landslide upstream on the Hood River that basically caused the sandbar to form. There was always a small beach there, but the landslide is really what made the Hood River spit a viable launch site. It was the beginning of a great thing for the town and for the growth of kiteboarding in the Northwest.

Photo Paul Lang

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What was teaching like back then?

It was as hectic as you can imagine. It was cold, windy, and choppy and the gear was not very forgiving. The stress level was pretty much through

the roof and it was tough just to manage the emotions — both mine and the student’s. It was not easy and it was not comfortable. I taught for two years on two line kites. The safety gear was really rudimentary, so we spent a lot of time trying to drive home the safety aspects. Without depower teaching people how to control the power with their board was a big focus too. It’s so much easier now.

I don’t think I ever looked at it as being hard at the time. I definitely never looked to the future and thought it would get easier. I was concerned with giving people a good experience and making sure they left with the skills they needed. Once I made the decision to do it, there was no looking back. Now I look back and say to myself, “What was I thinking?”

I was just locked into entrepreneurial mode and really focused on making the business work.

You’ve been involved with kiteboarding R&D with a number of different companies for a long time. At what point did you start working on the product development side of the sport?

As my riding career grew I found that people looked for feedback from me. It really began with Wipika.

I was breaking a ton of boards and the technology was just starting to be figured out. A lot of the twin tips at first were the windsurf-style sandwich construction. We hadn’t really got to the snowboard technology yet. There was a lot of, “Go ride this, tell me what you think, see if you can break it.” I also became involved with DaKine early on. They were really supportive of me from day one and were always asking for my opinion. It started small and went from there. I think it’s a logical thing that when someone supports you they look for your input on their products.

Do you remember specific products that either didn’t work at all or felt like a huge step in the right direction?

It really depended on the product. Boards were where you really got that “Wow this is a big step” feeling. A lot of it was construction and figuring out tradeoffs between things like weight and strength. I remember trying different safety systems. With those you knew right away if it was a failure because your kite was gone or it started looping and pulling you down the river. There were also those moments in kite design when a new prototype showed up and all the magical combinations were there. Flying a kite and getting the exact feeling you were searching for is pretty amazing. One of the cool things about kites is that once you find that magic, then it starts all over with each size in the range. You can dial one kite in, but that doesn’t mean it can just be scaled for the other sizes.

Each product can have things about it that create magic moments or failures.

I’ve ridden some kites where my first reaction is that it’s terrible, but after 30 minutes of tweaking the bridle the same canopy is suddenly awesome. I’ve experienced a lot of successes and failures over the years. Really, that’s what R&D is. It takes lots of failures and time spent tweaking and scratching your head before you can walk away from the beach happy.

mindful of safety. I see it everyday on the tour. Yes, the riders are professionals, but there are situations that if something went wrong there’s not enough time or room to react. There’s no doubt that the sport is much safer now, but we’re still pushing it.

How did you make the shift from being a rider to being involved with events and the PKRA tour?

As riders, I and mostly Ben Meyer would hop on the mic during events. Chris Tronolone was doing the event videos back then and he would get on the mic whenever he could too. It was mainly just for fun.

My event experience began as an athlete and then I moved into judging on the PKRA tour. The PKRA’s director Mauricio Toscano became a friend of mine and through him I was able to see the events from the inside. As an athlete I was taken care of. I didn’t care or know what happened behind the scenes or how it happened. I showed up to compete, yelled at the race director when I lost my heats, and knew where to go to collect my prize money. PKRA stands for Pro Kite Riders Association so it did start as a rider tour. As a rider I felt like I could be as involved as I wanted. To a certain degree it still is that way.

How did you become involved at Airush?

About five years ago Svein Rasmussen invited me to Thailand to meet him and Clinton Filen, the Brand Manager at Airush. I was brought on to help Airush create an identity and got to be a part of a great team. It was always a very product-driven company, but I think for a time it got a little lost in terms of what the market wanted. I was lucky and came in at a time when I had a pretty good grip of what I thought a kite company should do and look like. A “ One of the cool things lot of what we did was to create a feel and a culture about kites is that around the brand. I think I’m drawn to certain brands for the same reasons as everyone else. What do once you find that you feel when you interact with the brand? What magic, then it starts all about when you look at the graphics or watch the videos? Do you identify with it or not? Is it a positive over with each size in interaction? We were all on the same page in terms the range. You can dial of where we wanted to take it and we had a lot one kite in, but that of flexibility. It was a great three and a half years and I really feel we were able to bring Airush up doesn’t mean it can to the next level. My role now is more of a brand just be scaled for the ambassador, but I still help on the product side a other sizes.” little bit, and that’s where I’ve been for the last two years.

A tragic accident in the early days of the sport was Silke Gorldt’s death in Germany during a competition in 2002 when her kite tangled with another competitor’s and she wasn’t able to let her kite go because quick releases weren’t in use yet. Most kiteboarders now either don’t remember this accident or have never heard of it. What was your view on Silke’s death as someone who was involved in the industry then?

I was actually there competing in that event. It was a really traumatic thing. It kind of freaked me out to see how some people handled it. Some of the competitors had an attitude of “Whoa, I’m outta here” and basically left for the airport. I was like holy shit, someone died in front of us while we were competing on the water. The last thing I wanted to do was leave. Industry wide Silke’s accident had an impact and brands I was involved with were really concerned. There were prototype quick releases but nothing in production yet. It was definitely a wake up call to the industry and to riders that things can really go wrong. I think it fast tracked a focus on safety and the introduction of quick releases. Lives have been saved as a result. Quick releases have probably been the biggest and most important safety improvement we’ve seen in kiteboarding. To some extent I think a lot of people have become less

Photo Jon Malmberg

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Photo Toby Bromwich

“ It’s supposed to be fun and I think it’s important to always remember that.”

What’s your current role on the tour?

I produce and commentate the livestream.

Do you feel the livestream and live judging have changed the events?

Definitely. Those two things should always be together. It makes it much more interactive to watch and easier to follow. It’s been the same with surfing.

Ask anyone in our demographic if they’d rather watch a football game or an ASP event online. Most would rather watch surfing. It’s changed the way people look at it and follow it.

You were recently at the PKRA stop in St. Peter-Ording, Germany. What’s it like being at a kiteboarding event that draws more than 100,000 people to the beach?

It’s massive and it keeps growing every year.

Kiteboarding is an amazing vehicle for getting people together and creating a cool scene. In Europe it’s seen as a much better vehicle for marketing and people and companies want to be associated with it.

It’s the biggest kiteboarding event of the year and it’s fitting that it happens in Germany as Germany is probably the largest market in terms of sales. It’s a huge 10-day festival in the middle of nowhere and they basically set up an entire city full of activities.

The riding styles have changed a lot over the years on the tour. Is this driven by the riders or is it driven by the judging standards?

I think it’s all driven by the riders. The evolution of tricks is pretty much an evolution of what the riders collectively want. Almost everything the riders are doing now are things we used to talk about maybe being possible one day. “Can you imagine when we’ll be able to actually loop the kite in the air? What about when we’ll be able to do handle passes way up in the air and then loop the kite?” Those were real discussions and we’ve already moved past those stages. The whole point of competitions is trying to one-up your peers and do something unique and

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original in the sport. We’ve seen it get closer and closer to what guys are doing on a cable or behind a boat. Right now it’s almost wholly drawn from those influences and power is king. That means kite low, into the trick with speed, out of the trick with speed. It’s technically difficult and is seen as the highest level of the sport now, but it’s still an evolution. At one point the highest level of the sport was big board offs and spins. Before that it was grabs, big jumps, and onefooters. It was once big jumps with kite loops and handle passes with your kite high. Now it’s all about powerful execution and technicality.

I know in North America a lot of riders are critical of the tour, but I feel like it’s a little bit of a cop out. Very few North American riders come to PKRA events, but I think a lot of riders would benefit by seeing what goes on here. The level on the tour is really high and I don’t think that those who are critical of the PKRA realize that. Competitive kiteboarding isn’t free riding. It’s going out in conditions you might not even want to ride in and pulling it together for seven minutes against another rider with amazing physical and mental skills. Whether you want to call it freestyle or wakestyle, what is happening on the PKRA tour is the most difficult style of kiteboarding right now. We’re largely dependent on a younger demographic to keep people coming into the sport, and that’s what they the like and want to see.

One thing I think people lose track of though is that this is just one aspect of the sport. Competition riding doesn’t represent kiteboarding as a whole. I was going through old photos the other day and I came across photos from a strapless event I did in Hood River in 2007. This event was basically getting a bunch of good people together to have fun. Thinking back on it I feel it’s one of the cooler things I’ve done in the sport. We put on a pretty good grass roots event and it was a good reminder that kiteboarding is just a board sport. It’s not that much different than hopping on your surfboard or skateboard.

It doesn’t have to be technical. It’s supposed to be fun and I think it’s important to always remember that.

Photo Alberto Guglielmi

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roots

By Raphael Salles | Photo Bernard Biancotto

This photo was taken in August of 1998 at Beauduc in southern France. My friend Robert Teriitehau was there and I wanted to show him how great kitesurfing was. The car belonged to famous windsurfing photographer Bernard Biancotto. This board is the original F-One

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production kiteboard – the model 215 with three foot straps. The kite is a small 5m foil from Concept Air. Back then we only had 2-line kites and we always jumped unhooked. I think it would be impossible for me to do it again with the same equipment!

rider: Kasia Lange PKRA debutante photo: Lukas Nazdraczew,

BEYOND EXPECTATIONS Welcome to Nobile 2014 Collection85 nobilekiteboarding.com

Parting Shot

North team members Tom Herbert, Airton Cozzolino Lopes, Tom Court, and Matchu Lopes Almeida head back to the hotel after a long day spent on the water during a 2014 product shoot in Mauritius.

Hard work, but somebody has to do it. Photo Mario Entero

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2014 TKB FREERIDE GEAR TESTING

Join the TKB crew in La Ventana or Los Barriles this winter for your chance to try out all the new 2014 Freeride gear. Limited to up to 12 guests per trip. Includes daily downwind service and all meals.

NEW FOR 2014: Select test gear available to participants only at demo pricing!

WANT TO HELP REVIEW GEAR FOR TKB?

WANT TO JUST TRY THE NEW GEAR OUT?

La Ventana TKB Freeride Gear Test, January 4-12, 2014

Los Barriles TKB Freeride Week, January 18-26, 2014

(Testing from January 6-11 with optional trip to the Pacific for waves or whale shark tour)

(Testing from January 19-23, then VIP passes for special events at Lord of the Wind January 23-26)

Find details and package options at www.thekiteboarder.com/baja

t r u e

k i t e b oa r d i n g

NEW FREERIDE GENERATION Twin tip development, testing and tweaking with our team over the past two years has now inspired a total redesign process of our brand new freeride range.

The result is a V-Rocker scoop line with a rounded center section and planing areas under the stance, combined with a straighter outline.

These three performance-oriented freeride weapons offer more comfort, better edging and earlier planing then ever before!

X-ride

WIDER TIP

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ear LY P L a n n i n g an d g o o d P o P

V-ROCKER L eSS S P raY a n d Mo r e Co M Fo r t

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STRAIGHTER OUTLINE Mo r e e dg e g r i P

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www. n o r t h k i t e s .com

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