Kiteboarding?

[trevoringle]

Who does it? Who’s tried it? Love it or hate it?

My wife, son and myself go to the outer banks every year and I always see them out there flying around. Just seems like a lot of fun. I’ve ridden every other type of board but one attached to a flying death trap hasn’t been in my experience yet. I’ve been looking into some used set-ups.

 

[StretchASU]

Paging @Will Carter

 

[trevoringle]

Paging @Will Carter

Now we’re getting somewhere, any advice?

 

[Will Carter]

It’s like wake boarding except when you crash you’re still attached to the boat for another 30 yards or so. And sometimes the boat jumps waves while you’re crashing.

Edit: I’ll report back this evening with real information.

 

[dash]

Lots of fun, It’s surprisingly easy on the knees and back.

I bought a trainer kite 2 years before I took my first lesson..

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Used the trainer kite to learn how to control the kite. If you fly the trainer kite in over 25mph winds it will drag you down the beach. I bring the trainer kite every time I go to the beach. It’s a lot of fun.

I did a private half day lesson with real water sports in Waves.

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By the end of the lesson I was able to get down wind a good ways before falling off. I was not willing to spend the money to buy the gear to kitesurf so I just use the trainer kite.

 

[Will Carter]

It’s pretty much what we do in the summer months now. Probably made a dozen trips last season.

I rode wake boards and flew smaller two line and 4 line kites since I was 13 or so so putting them together wasn’t that bad. I too did one half day with Real water sports and took it on my own from there.

My girlfriend however has never done either of the sports and she’s in season 3 of learning and is just now getting comfortable with the basics.

We take a jet ski for backup. Mainly for her because riding up wind is the hard part. And I go fishing when the wind isn’t blowing.

It ain’t cheap. Kites are consumable. The more they crash hard the shorter their life span. We bought new when we went all in. I have about $12k in two boards, two sets of lines, 3 kites, a few different harnesses, wet suits, life jackets…stuff… Core kite stuff so not the cheapest. But if you go shopping used and you don’t know how many hard impacts it’s taken then that half price kite might only last you half as long before you’re spending another few hundred to have it repaired.

There’s a lot to learn/skills to put together before you’re safely on your own being able to actually stay in one spot on the water and not be blown down the coast at the mercy of the wind.

But yes first step as said before, if you can already ride a board, is to go buy a ‘trainer kite’ and get it ingrained in your brain that you can’t steer a kite like a car, you push and pull to make it go left and right. I think our little trainer is a 1 or 1.5 meter and anything over 20 mph and i can fly it hard enough to make me stumble. It’s fun.

Then possibly go to Real or Kitty Hawk for lessons. Or, if you’d like to chat about it I might be down for an extended weekend type of lesson thing. Probably looking around $1000 for the weekend if your crashing my kites and stuff. But compared to $500-600 for a few hours at one of the other places I think it’s not such a bad deal.

And what makes it more fun is that when you freak out and yank on the bar because you’re getting out of control it only makes the kite more powerful and you more rag doll.