Trainer Kite Horseplay + Windsurfing

For Easter I drove up to visit my parents and relatives in Edisto Island, South Carolina. It was a lot of fun.

Friday we visited Grandmama in the Summerville Presbyterian Home.

Saturday it was warm with 10-15 knot W winds and we had a windsurfing beach party with my folks' friends from the island. My dad took the maiden voyage on the modern gear I hooked him up with; a 7.8 msq Aerotech AirX sail and a Fanatic Viper 85 beginner board. He was planing and using the harness. I traded back and forth with him on that setup until the tide shifted and the wind picked up enough that I could ride my shortboard / 6.6 sail.

Easter Sunday it was 15-20 knots from the NE so I got to try the new 5.5 Aerotech Charge I had purchased at Sandy Point Progressive Sports in Daytona Beach on the way up. It's red. I liked the feel of it a lot. Stable, powerful, fast, light, manouverable, and "crisp" feeling. I actually got a duck jibe on port tack with it! Mostly I rode it on an Exocet Cross 106, but also for a while on my 87 liter F2 Maui Project. Weirdly enough, the ride seemed bumpier on the smaller board in the choppy onshore conditions.

Later in the afternoon my dad and I flew the 4 msq trainer kite that I've had for a while. It was windy enough that when you did a kiteloop, you would get dragged across the hard-packed sand.



Pretty soon I'm going to take some kiteboarding lessons, but I don't envision that sport ever taking over from my windsurfing. Steve Gottlieb, the Aerotech Sails designer who runs Sandy Point Progressive Sports, says he does both sports, but mainly kites in 10-15 knots, and windsurfs above or below that. Also, he said the dynamics of windsurfing in waves are more thrilling than kiting in waves, for him at least.