Missing Kiteboarder Found

[ricki]

There are some cases where folks will go in offshore winds but usually with a chase boat or with a long distance of shallow water as you experienced in Hatteras. The wind shadow effect off the land can severely disturb the quality of wind for miles offshore. I was about 2 1/2 miles off Boca beach in strong west winds and it was still way too gusty to kite for much distance at all. The harsh awaking comes when you try to kite back to shore and the stalling and yarding become worse the closer you get to land! You usually have to tear down and tow the lot in. Using the kite as a sail on the water usually doesn't work with dead offshore wind, you go close to parallel to shore instead of in. Sometimes I have had to reduce the leading edge pressure just to drop the wind drag on the kite to permit me to tow it shoreward.

The time we kited from Ft.Lauderdale to Bimini, we didn't start to come out of land effect on the side offshore wind until we were over five miles from shore. I haven't noticed much land effect on wind at Stiltsville in west winds which is seven miles from shore. Avoid offshore winds, go for side to side onshore winds.