Olympic Kiteboarding Demonstration - Photos!

[ricki]

Thanks for your input Kent and Happy Birthday by the way. Glad you got a nice session in this morning. How about that, kiting for an entire summer HERE? Boggles the imagination! I think that alone should get more kiters into this. Are you folks still having the Wednesday evening races in Miami?

Good point Steve! Until I had spoken to Kent, I had never even heard of a 470 before. Much less had a mental picture of what it looked like. I noted the countries of origin on the sails and moved on!

It was a very challenging day even for some superlative riders. Mainly because of the lighter and more uneven winds in the launch area. Further out in the bay it was rideable part of the time. It still turned off even there at times dropping kites to the water. Conditions were better where most of the other folks were racing closer to Key Biscayne.

[ARCSrule]

no foils?

[ricki]

Not this time. Were there in foils in the course races in Mexico? How did they work out?

[uride2]

What kite is Gebi on here?
3 struts?

[ricki]

Gebi was on a SS Rally I understand.

[kent]

Gebi is riding for SS and that was a 3 strut Rally. Nope, foils are not legal for kite course racing currently (well, they actually may be under the rules if the foil does not exceed 50 cm). The main point is that currently they don't seem to be beating the new course boards around a course. They are super competitive upwind, but still suffer off the breeze a bit. I personally like the idea of the foil and used to have one many years ago. It looks like the new versions are much better and can be ridden in straps. I'd like to try one again some time soon.

We may do some fun course racing in the bay on Saturday witht the first race being at 10 a.m. we will probably run 5 course races and keep scores. anyone interested?

[tonykite]

If the Naples Race is a no go. I am in!

Tanguy