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How do you read gusts Kitesurfing??


george meredith

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Been kitesurfing in some reasonably gusty winds and have not managed to work out at what point a gust will hit you in comparison to when it gets to your kite. I have done allot of sailing and you can see exactly when a gust will hit you but kitesurfing is a little bit different. Is it just that there is a slight delay in when the wind gest to you and then to your kite?

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George, your kite is possibly 30 mtres down wind of you. The higher it is, the less distance. The equation would be

 

a divided by b = x. a being gust speed in mtres/ second. b being your distance from the kite. (line length works for me) and x being the time between the gust hitting you and the gust hitting the kite.

 

This is what I use. For eg. The other day at Maybo there was a 1.7 second difference in me feeling the gust to when I felt it thro the kite. A little bit of reverse engineering thro the equation gives you all the details. I was on 30 mtre lines btw.

 

Trouble I have is keeping my notepad dry.

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Cheers for the info :) , I don't actually need to work it the exact timings out, but it would just make kitesurfing in gusty winds much easier if you can try and predict gusts and lulls in the wind. e.g do people ever try to jump exactly when you think a gust will hit you for the highest boost? and yeah I can see how there is allot of different variables and I guess a lot of it comes down to experience!

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I just sheet out and dig in my edge as soon as I feel gust, is an algorithm really required?

 

Helps if you know what angle you have to dig the edge in at shirley? Like foe eg. The smaller x is, the nearer 90 deg. to the water the board will be. Its an exacting science moose. Get with the program dude.

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All the kites Ive ever used have been the double depower sort and tbh, Ive never really been bothered by gust. My latest board seems to be able to hold a huge amount of power as well. Now, I never realised about boards holding power till I got my Takoon. I would always be ripped off the water or lose the edge. Now, its just dig in and hold it.

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