Kiteboarding: Starboard Tack

On the 6th of April I returned home tired from a mere four hours sleep, sore from sitting in a car all day, drained some unexpectedly emotional exercise. But regardless Tony was ready to go surfing and it was three months since we had last hit the beach. I think the main takeaway was that its good to learn with somebody else. ~30min of trying to launch the kite is exhausting, especially when it first involves walking half a kilometre through the surf to get to deep enough water. But in that gat the other person has time to recover.

I was pretty pleased with being able to stop and restart the kite on purpose without loosing the board. Also the starboard tack that gave me such grief last time was now easy. Tony was also making progress at changing speeds by shifting feet to cut higher into the wind. Moving the kite away from the edge of the wind doesn’t really help much.

Seems the next milestone is a long way off and in the mean time we merely need to spend time on the water. Probably a solid day would see some good progress. The most exhausting part is walking through the surf to get started. Once on the board and aquaplaning it doesn’t actually require much physical exertion. Once we can tack without stopping then it should be fine to use the shallower water and stay in the water for longer.

After that I may get some more photos.