whiplash

Whiplash here reporting from Cape Town, South Africa. Looking out my office window now i see the branches moving..my guesse is about 14MPH as i type..pity i`m oin my office and not on the beach

a tad!!!! OMG!!! I will never launch my 4.9 in 30mph:confused: ..nevermind think of a 6.5 in those winds! Thats 2.5 bullet for me.. generaly when the wind gets above 20mph here its way gusty though.. Respect!! Thats some serious kahoonas you have there sir:o

i dunno about the blur but i have a 2.5 Bullet and i fly it in high winds. If its anything like my bullet then be very carefull. I went out in +30MPH and went home with broken ribs. They are super fast when the wind picks up and if you dont watch them they bite, fast. Granted i was very unexperienced at that time and it was gusty. Cutting upwind at a good speed kite at the edge, looking at my path for a sec and not the kite, what happened next i`m stillnot sure. I think i might have accidentaly pulled a brake line or something, but before i could look up the kite was shooting back and low through the power in the opposite direction i was traveling, whipped me against the ground hard enough to break two ribs. and left me very confused and with no air in my lungs for a few moments. I have had plenty wipes and crashed bikes on the road and dirt and broken legs and fractured my skull but that was one of the hardest impacts i ever felt. Now i purely use it as a high wind buggy engine and static toy.. when its 2.5 wind i dont even take my board out..or for my girlfriend when i fly my 4.9

Hey Thanks for the info Yeah its stropped. I thought i`d have to let em go. Its fine, thats what i`ve been doing anyways. Thanks again WL

so i was just wondering what you guys do with your killers when using a harness?? i tried to only use one handle`s killer, but if i let go to drag my hand across the sand(in the buggy or board) i pull the killer..oops then i tried attaching it to my harness but its too short and also pulls the brake when i steer my kite..oops again Then i tried attaching both killers to each other first, and then to my harness , it works, i can steer the kite hassle free, now the elastic is too long between the harness and my killer and it goes under my wheel when i buggy..another oops. Seems like as soon as it long enough top allow for full control its also long enough to go under my wheel so i just took the dang things off and played like that

yep i know how you feel i used a home made strop when i first got a harness tied it on the handles and was quite happily flying my sons blade when snap! one side of the strop shot off as i hadn't tied it on properly and i fell back into a load of stinging nettles had shorts and t-shirt on at the time so got stung pretty good, but thought sod it and carried on as i was having so much. hehehe same here.i just kicked my shoes of and continued playing in my socks..didnt get back on the board without shoes, just played in the soft sand jumping and scudding

oh yes my big toe`s nail is falling of my toe.. i was finally starting to get myslef off the ground while on my board. for some reason i can static jump really easily but as soon as i`m on my board i cant jump, just end up getting really "light" and sliding all over the place. anyhoo, one of my jumps i went up about 2 feet and a gust passed and boosted me about another 2 feet up (woah!!! now i`m really flying hey ) , but i started to redirect allready so i ended up going forward in the air quite a bit as well. I knew i wouldnt land it on my board with so much forward motion so i kicked my board off and knocked my toe pretty hard landing..hehehehe..now the toenail is loose and seems to want to come off.

its now 16:30 and i have 30minutes to kill before i go home...thought i`d share my weekends hooked in flying experience.. i been kiting for a few years now but never used a harness.. the thought of being attached if something goes wrong:eek: has been delaying it. But a few weeks back i picked up a second hand harness..its a Pro limit something and its a waist harness. I got it for cheap, its still pretty new and it fits very snug. Got some climbing rope and made some strops. Went out this weekend and it was blowing nice. i measured 14-16mph cross shore. Had a good time flying my 4.5 bullet in the buggy. First thing i noticed is how direct my kite has become once harnessed in..wow!..never realised how much my arms and upper body worked like a suspension system. Every little gust now goes right through me into the buggy. And when it overflies and luffs i cant just pull the kite a bit closer to me.. I need to use my steering much more now to compensate for sudden changes in power. Had a hairy moment doing a downturn and flying th ekite back low through the window, so it whips me around as i changed direction. I was on a very bouncy bit of beach. As the kite was getting to its max power through the power zone i hit all these bumps on my downturn and both feet bounced off my pegs and i rotated in my seat facing(me and my feet, was very bouncy) downwind and my bug about 45degree left of downwind with my kite moving through the power and now 45degree right of downwind. so...my buggy stopped turning and went straight.. I went OMG and let go only to get this sinking feeling when nothing changed after i let go. I was hooked in. by then it was all over and i was shooting towards the sea with my feet dangling off the sides of the bug and my kite under control at the edge. then i took my Blade MK1 4.9, aka the tracktor. Played static with this kite for a while.. OMG i love this kite on my harness..or my harness has made me realise how great this kite is. Normally i could barely hang on for 15 minutes static to that thing.. Now i could do it all day. Did some jumps and slowly going harder and harder. Never went higher than say 6 feet, but i felt in control all the time and was super calm. Thinking and trying different redirect speeds and times. HUUUGE scuds. I love how i can lay on my back and fly the kite so i hover high enough to put my feet on the ground again. One gust came through with the kite in the middle of window about 2/3 up to the top. I just launched so bloody fast i couldnt believe it. Not even a hint of anything and i was airborn. Last story. its 16:50:p .. my mate is chilling on the beach and i`m like "i`m gonna jump over you ok, ok?" hehehe.. i line myself up and load my kite, start running back and send it back and dont ask me how but i somehow ducked under my lines instead of jumping behind the kite. did a weird unplanned rotation, like running to the right, send kite back to the top, when jumping do colckwise turn under thekite.. was rad, but i found myslef about 6 feet up, horizontal to the ground, hooked in and my kite not much higher than me. I had a moment of "oh Gahd i`m gonna break something when i hit the deck chest first" and in the same instant kinda saying to myself "you got yourself here now deal withit!" Now dont ask me how this happend, i was very disorientated at that point. i was flying forward pretty fast and got my kite to go back up. i landed on my feet aparently, i prefer to say my feet touched the ground first. I turned the kite back to the ground when i hit the ground so she powered right up and gave me a proper , hooked in, face in the dirt, on my back, then my stomache, then my sides, head over heels pull through the sand as she dived through the power into the ground. It was radical and lotsa fun. No injuries and byfar my best flight with the 4.9 ever. anyway..its 17:04 and i`m outa here

wow..thats HUGE!!! dunno if any of you been in that water but its sooo cold..how he does that without a wetsuit i dont know..i used to live right there and buggy just up the road! i cant get deeper than my knees and start cramping up and aching within seconds..hehehe..

dang i wish there was someone is South Africa that could teach me. most buggies ever on the beach was 5..and i dont knwo of anybody else who does it.. so over here we kinda have to learn the hard way, from repeated mistakes:eek: . hence my broken ribs and moved discs a while ago:( Nobody to point out mistakes and say "no, put your kite there rather" or "you pull with your upwind hand when you rotate" .. same with landboarding..progressing REALLY slow:mad: took me long to figure out why when ever i do a 360 i get yanked downwind hard as soon as the kite is behind me..turned out i looped the kite everytime. once i kept my wrists togetehr it was all better.. its a steep long learning curve..if ever i am in the UK i WILL come for lessons for sure..its just not big enough over here.

when you say a rail do you mean on the side of the kayak. This kayak has quite a rail on both edges of it. and a few different skeggs to try out. i`m thinking if i can push my lower body under the lines (like when i hang left over my buggy to counter the right hand side pull) and dig in the tail at an angle it might be able to hold a line(and make a nice spray)..its not a long kayak. Its one of those that you have that dome that seals around your waist and connects to the kayak. It s a small thing meant for waves, about 6 feet long if i remeber correct, seems very manuevrable..we have bigger ones to play with too.

hehehe..looks fun.. i`ll let you know how it went. we should be going out to the lagoon on the weekend of 21st march. If the wind is up of course.

its been a while since i posted on here..yes i still fly..just not chat as much..work work work anyway me and some friends decided this weekend that we want to take my blades out while strapped into a sea kayak:p just for the kick of it we will be using a shallow lagoon because the blades ARE gonna go for a few swims..pretty sure of that..shallow so that we can walk in and lift the soggy kites from the water..no inflatable kites in my arsenal anybody tried this before?? we have a few different size kayaks and skeggs to play with.. i think the shortest one would be best any tips for this experiment.. i can see some funny wipe outs.pretty sure we gonna roll it a few times.. my biggest concern is that the kayak wont be able to hold a line..it has rails along the side and its fixed to the rider so i can use my body and the pull of the kite to dig the tail end in the water.with the skeg in the back i would think you could dig the tail in similar to kite surfing and it should maybe be ok.. i`ve always wanted to drag my body through the water with my blades and not worry about crashing them..or just do a jump from the beach in a wind that would scare me on land and truely GO for it not being worried of broken ankles if i mess up my redirect because i`ll land in the water..hehehehe..i`ll try deeper water for this..like chest depth.. any tips for this would be appreciated WL

heres a few more. Really small jumps ,i know. I was a bit scared to commit to a big jump. I haven`t been out flying in a long while and was landing wrong and messing up my redirects everytime i jumped. The wind was perfect clean 15mph. I was flying the BladeI 4.9. I know how quick i woulda gone REAL high if i had to really commit,run into the wind and whip it hard . I decided not to tho as i was just feeling to out of sync with jumping. Call me a wussy. and another 2wheel pic. it is the last one in a 8shot sequence starting way back on the beach.. Anyhoooo...cant wait to get back out there and do it all over again:)

@ Kiteboyza - Spot on dude!! Thats the bit between the river mouth and koeberg..Well spotted. Was a nice day. I was there before sunrise. Nice steady 15mph almost perfect onshore. But wait... we`ve spoken a while ago on here...you from here...its coming back to me. @ Sand Yeti - Yeah i`m fine, did a tumbleturn and that was about it. my ear was numb for the rest of the day as it was pretty chilly out and my back wheel whipped me on the ear as it came over...hehehe