I am often questioned at the beach, "What is that sport called? How much for one of those? where do you get one of those?"
Well, the sport is called kiteboarding add waves and it becomes Kitesurfing.This sport is not for the faint at heart, it takes a lot of time and effort to learn. If it was easy everyone would be doing it, like jet skiing.
If you want to fast track through the learning faze, you need to book a trip to the Outerbanks, Cape Hatteras, NC, where they offer a kitesurfing course called "zero to hero in four days". This course will cost around $400, but it is well worth it. This will cut out months of anguish. A lot of Caribbean destinations have these courses as well.
If you opt to go it alone, first, you need to get a trainer kite which runs around $150. You can call http://www.myerskitesurfing.com/ at 751-9234 and he will set you up. Second, it would help if you know how to wakeboard.
Best beaches to learn to fly your kite are Woodlawn Beach near the Ford Plant, Bennett Beach in Grand View Bay USA and Pleasant Beach in Canada, or any wide open area with clean wind. You may see a lot of kiteboarders at Hamburg Beach, but this is not a good place to learn, the beach is crowded narrow and has a lot of rocks, if you look like you do not know what you are doing, someone may ask you to leave. So do your self a favor and do not go there until you can hold your own. Also, make sure no people are in the kite crash zone, because some one can get hurt. If you have swirling wind, where the kite just falls out of the sky because of a wind shift, you need a new spot. This type of wind is dangerous.
After mastering the trainer kite, then it time to buy some real equipment which may run $500 used to $1500 new. After learning how to marry flying the kite and getting up on a kiteboard, then you will need 2 to 3 kites for different wind conditions. For example a top of the line North 12 meter kite retails for around $1300, a new top of the line North board may run $400 or more.
Best beaches to learn to fly your kite are Woodlawn Beach near the Ford Plant, Bennett Beach in Grand View Bay USA and Pleasant Beach in Canada, or any wide open area with clean wind. You may see a lot of kiteboarders at Hamburg Beach, but this is not a good place to learn, the beach is crowded narrow and has a lot of rocks, if you look like you do not know what you are doing, someone may ask you to leave. So do your self a favor and do not go there until you can hold your own. Also, make sure no people are in the kite crash zone, because some one can get hurt. If you have swirling wind, where the kite just falls out of the sky because of a wind shift, you need a new spot. This type of wind is dangerous.
After mastering the trainer kite, then it time to buy some real equipment which may run $500 used to $1500 new. After learning how to marry flying the kite and getting up on a kiteboard, then you will need 2 to 3 kites for different wind conditions. For example a top of the line North 12 meter kite retails for around $1300, a new top of the line North board may run $400 or more.
After all is said and done, this sport is a money pit but is worth every penny. It is full throttle adrenalin. Once you are ready for the best equipment on the market then my shop urban threads can get you any North Kite product for a good price, or buy your stuff from Bill Myers. In any case buy local!!!
Do yourself a favor and book a week-long trip to North Carolina.
Good Luck, Wardo.
6 comments:
Ward,
Your doing a good job keeping the info up on the blog. Glad to see you guys up in NY keeping the sport safe. Hope Bill is jumping bigger than two feet and Matt is doing Double front roll, board offs landing to blind. Our wind down in Jersey has sucked for the last couple weeks and I'm jones'N'.
Hope your doin ok down there in grand view.
Chris
AKA: former Hamburg Beach wanna be "as good as Jeff" kiter.
Still kite every useable windy day.
12kite.com
If I can help You all plan a trip to Hatteras or Miami.
E-mail me info@12kite.com
In kiteboarding, you can learn fast, but kiting is a sport and there are many skills that must be taught and mastered. Kite control, the first step in becoming a "kiter" is to become proficient in flying a power kite.
Keep up the good work guys! I enjoyed reading your posts!
I have tought lessonsall over Hatteras NC. is the best.
Great job.... I want share a kitesurfing school website were kitesurfing lover lern how to launch kite wih proper instruction. http://www.kitesurfingnovascotia.com
I very much agree with what you wrote in this article, this is information that I had been looking for, thank you because you are willing to share with us.
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