Kiteboarding: Hybrid sport is up to competitive speed

[jstjohn3]

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Kiteboarding: Hybrid sport is up to competitive speed

By STEPHEN REGENOLD
THE NEW YORK TIMES

Kiteboarding is a hybrid sport with roots in windsurfing, wakeboarding and paragliding, and it is commonly cited as one of the fastest growing water sports in the world. The International Kiteboarding Organization estimates that there are 150,000 kiteboarders worldwide, up from a few thousand five years ago.

Initially popularized in the late 1990s in places like Maui, France and the Columbia Gorge between Oregon and Washington, kiteboarding, which also is called kitesurfing, is coming of age.

There are sponsored athletes and a competition circuit, local and national kiteboarding clubs, and skill-level certifications. Recent advances in kiteboarding equipment also have made learning the sport safer and easier.

Wind and wave are the mediums of the sport. Participants usually fasten into an elaborate harness system with a trapezelike control bar. Feet are strapped into a 4-foot-long board. Thin cords tether kitesurfers to large half-moon canopies -- the engine that provides lift, speed and power as they jump waves and travel ocean or river shorelines.

"It's easier to learn than windsurfing," said Jason Lee, a 26-year-old resident of San Luis Obispo, Calif., who teaches kiteboarding at Pismo State Beach.

Lee windsurfed before flying his first kite five years ago. Now he competes in international showdowns in Venezuela, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Hawaii. His company, California Kiteboarding, offers lessons at Pismo State Beach from March through September. "I get my students in the water and up on a board, sometimes during their first lesson," he said.

On a windy Saturday, Lee met with four eager students for a lesson on the basics of kiteboarding. A constant ocean wind blew in as the group assembled around a pile of cord and folded nylon kites. The ocean spray, an incessant ethereal mist, coated sunglasses in a salty patina.

Nearby, beach walkers held onto their hats in the wind, which Lee estimated was gusting up to 40 mph. "We're going to blow right off this beach," said one of the students, Todd Scattini, an Army captain from Monterey, Calif.

The four students, barefoot and dressed in black neoprene wetsuits, huddled around as Lee laid out the details of the day. Flying a small trainer kite on dry land, Lee said, was step No. 1. The group would work up to the larger kites, learning how to turn and control the powerful canopies in several positions. The ocean, Lee said, would not play a part in the learning process until the last hour of the lesson.

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Scattini, who first saw kiteboarding in New Zealand, volunteered to launch the first kite of the day. The thin control lines were unwrapped, 100 feet of cord stretched across the sand. The nylon kite, held tight to the ground by another student, flapped violently in the wind.

Arms locked out in front of his body, Scattini gripped a control bar. Lee unfurled the trainer kite, about 10 by 3 feet, allowing the leading edge to catch a breeze, and then, like a rocket, the crescent-shape kite launched with a zinging, snapping muffle. Control cords stretched skyward abruptly and tight. Scattini skidded forward, his heels dug in, tracking two lines in the sand.

"This little thing has some power," he said.

Soon, all four students had kites aloft, practicing dips and turns and figure-eights in the sky. The control bar, a padded 2-foot shaft, provided a precise rein.

"Push and pull the bar," Lee yelled over the wind. "Don't try to use it like a steering wheel."

Kites dipped down near horizontal and then ripped back upward in a surge of airy power. Every few minutes a kite would nosedive in an instant of lost control, followed by a giant Wmmpf! as the kite crashed like a doomed fighter jet.

A half-mile down the shore, a dozen kiteboarders played in the surf. Bobbing in swells and jumping off waves, the boarders glided parallel to the shore, their colorful canopies pulling strong in the wind. Pismo State Beach, which is a shallow, sandy beach with steady winds and few dangerous currents, is among the most popular kiteboarding areas in California, according to Lee.

Later in the day, after two hours of land instruction, Lee reassembled the group. It was time to get in the ocean.

Amber Sellinger, a 30-year-old geologist from nearby Oceano, Calif., wore a neoprene skullcap and booties along with her wetsuit. The ocean was probably in the mid-50s, and in the next exercise, which Lee dubbed the "body drag," all four students would be soaked.

"It's going to be just frigid!" Sellinger said, smiling and jumping up and down on the sand.

Scattini was first in the water. He waded out with Lee, tethered to a kite that had been launched on shore. When he was chest deep, Scattini swooped the kite down for power and dove forward into the surf, gasping for air and attempting to control the kite as it dragged him several hundred feet parallel to the beach.

Each student took a turn, and after a few drags, Lee gave each a kiteboard. The day's lesson would end with a chance to stand up and surf, if only for a second or two.

A set of waves, six foamy walls of water, rolled in as Scattini strapped into his board. Floating on his back some 100 feet offshore, kite hovering overhead, Scattini listened for the instructions.

"Dip the kite down to the right," Lee yelled. "Let it pull you up into a stance."

With a sudden swoop toward the water, and then a rising flight back into the sky, the kite yanked Scattini up onto the surface. His board skipped twice as the kite ripped along, and Scattini was fighting for control. A moment later, his kite crashed dramatically into a swell, plunging Scattini headlong with notable force back into the cold ocean water.

Lee waded out toward him, moving fast through waist-deep water. But Scattini was already standing up, trying to relaunch his kite.

Waves pounded the flailing canopy. Wind whipped overhead. And Lee moved out into the sea to untangle the cords, to launch the kite, to let his student fly again.

[Greg]

thats sweet..
My version would have gone, "just when the big gust hit he'... :butthead:
L.M.G.

[fearlu]

Sounds really fun. Those NY journalists are ON it!