KITE SURFING QUESTION

mawsy

I recently went kite surfing with 3 other buddies of mine.
we were all beginners btw!

In summary: my question is: when in the water, and lets say you've just turned your kite into the wind window, do you pull the bar towards you to get the wind power? or push it away from you!?

I faired the best out of the lot of us, getting a good few water drags consecutively on my front across the water without crashing the kite (without the board, coz we were just practicing getting used to using the kite in the water).

Afterwards, i was saying to the instructor that its so difficult to try and remember that pushing the bar away from you creates more power, because it seems like it would be more natural to pull something towards you to get the power. He agreed with me.

but once the instructor was gone, my friends said I had it all wrong, and that it was the other way round!? that you pull the bar towards you to get power? (yet they didnt manage to pull off what I'd managed to do in the water at all? but thats not to say I was right tho? could have just been bad luck/bad wind etc.) so... did I just fluke it out in the water by getting it wrong? or did they all misunderstand somehow? I know the instructor agreed with me, but maybe he was humouring me, or couldnt hear me (it was very windy) or both!? help! I'd like it cleared up for my next lesson! my heads confused!

LD 50

I haven't kite before, but I do kite on the ground. With them you push forward to kill the power, and pull to increase it. I presume its the same theory with the kite surfing.

Ask your instructor to clear it up next time you're out there.

You sounded like you were doing pretty well though. good luck

jkl

All my kites are pull back to power up.

vit

Pulling the bar increases the angle of attack of the kite, thus generating more lift. However, if you increase it too much, the kite stalls and starts losing it's power very quickly.

So, if in your case the kite did really power up when you pushed the bar away from you, this means your back lines were too short (or your front lines too long), so your kite flied fully powered up when the bar was out (which is dangerous), and it stalled whan you pulled in.

I would not imagine, however, how this could have happened on a properly maintained kite with properly fitted bar and flying lines. Also, if you stall a kite, it would want to fall from the sky (or fly backwards), so flying it would become pretty frustrating.

gobbles

if u sheet out the bar the kite generates more forward speed, and then you would pull in the bar and teh kite would power up. You wont learn anything on this forum because its you can only learn by experiencing it and the feeling that you get from the kite. Where did you do the lessons? your instuctor should have cleared it up for you a bit more if you were still confused.

Its all about practice, get out there and stick at it with motivation and you'll progress very fast!

In general, when diving the kite, bar can be pulled in, and when bringing it up again let it out almost half way to increase its speed, then pull it back in and turn then dive the kite again.

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