Saturday, November 21, 2009

Strings Attached

Kiteboarding is pretty fun, and once you get the basic feel it's almost stupidly easy compared to windsurfing. But using a large, complex kite to power a small, sinky board is much less reliable than using a modest sized sail to power a floaty windsurf board. One little thing goes wrong, and all of a sudden your high-tech, wing-shaped kite turns into a useless tangle of tent fabric and string, dead in the water. That's what happened to me at the end of an otherwise delightful kiteboarding session on Friday.

This is the whole video, which starts with the good part. The bad part at the end has a swear word. If you don't want to hear it, turn off the sound when Elvis Costello stops singing.

Awesome / Awful Kiteboarding Session from James Douglass on Vimeo.



This is a shorter video of just the bad part.

3 comments:

Johnny Douglass said...

Watch your language young man. We roll Grandmama in her wheel chair to the nursing home library computer to watch your videos.

Frank said...

Well James, After your latest adventure do you know understand why kites NEVER sail alone? I have broken down windsurfing numerous times over the last 20-30 years and have thankfully always self rescued. A fella in a boat tried to help me once and almost beat me to death. Windsurfing is safer!

Happy Thanksgiving
frank

James Douglass said...

Dad- Whoopsie daisy! I'll watch my language next time frustration strikes.

Frank- Yeah, kiting definitely has more things that can go wrong than windsurfing does. And when things do go wrong, it's worse with kiting. Happy Thanksgiving to you too. :)