Author: Tantrum

Performance Kitesurfing in Tarifa, Spain.
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Switch Kites Element 2012 Review

Switch Kites

We’re going to take a look at one of the new players in the kiting industry rocking the boat with their disruptive business model, namely by only selling direct and thus cutting the cost of kitesurfing equipment almost in half. Switch kites are leading the charge in this Brave New World.

Simply put the only place to buy a Switch kite is from their website. That way they don’t have dealers or distributors who then add their own margin on to the original cost of the kite. They have several warehouses around the world where the kites are drop shipped from (often with next day delivery).

This model means that Switch can deliver top of the range kites and boards at almost half the price of brands with a more traditional model of distribution. Last we checked a brand new 11m kite and bar from the Switch website was a little over 800 €…and these babies really are top quality.

Designed as the all rounder free ride kite in the Switch line up the Element is marketed to:

“All skill levels, from the novice rider through to the hardcore all rounder: The Element is the one kite travel companion when exploring the world.”

We ordered our Element off the Switch website and found the process as easy as it gets on the internet. 5 days later the kite was there on our doorstep (5 days as we’re in Europe) if you’re in the UK or a country where one of the 5 Switch warehouses is located it’s next day delivery.

[youtube height=”315″ width=”560″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deh2owI-lII[/youtube]

The Bag

Straight out of the bag you get the impression that this is something pretty special. The bag is stylish and compact. It has a pocket inside the bag to hold the bar (which also has it’s own bag) so when you’re traveling the bar is nicely tucked away inside the bag and the only thing outside the bag is the pump, which attaches on the lid of the bag. The zip has protection so you don’t catch the kite when zipping the bag up and in a nice touch you get a spare inflate nozzle attached to the bag. (more on that later). It also has netting on the underside of the bag to let excess sand drain out once you’ve packed away. Inside the front pouch of the bag is a repair kit, nicely packaged in a canvas wallet containing everything you need for emergency repairs at the beach, and of course the regulation stickers! In short we were impressed from the outset.

The Bar

Some very well thought out features here. The first thing we noticed when rolling it out was  the choice of attachment points for the lines so you have the choice of positioning the lines on wide or narrow setting meaning no more needing to buy 2 bars. If want to fly with a smaller kite, just re attach the lines at the narrow setting (done easily using a larks head) and the bar changes from a 55cm bar to a 45cm bar and you’re off.

The lines come with 3 metre extensions (taking them from 23m down to 20m) but unusually these are at the bar end of the lines. This is actually brilliant. The extension attachments are simply spliced line so they are nice and discreet and by having them at the bar end of the line it avoids them getting tangled anywhere near as much as they would if they were at the top of the lines (where the lines naturally tangle more easily), a very nice touch.

The centre lines have a swivel to keep them from getting twisted, unlike many of these systems this one  actually works. The de-power is above the bar and is very easy to pull on and lock off even when over powered. One slight caveat is that once pulled the loose de-power line tends to flap around and get twisted round your lines, while there is a velcro attachment, it very quickly stops working effectively and it would be nice if there someway of locking this down neatly. (this apparently has been fixed in later models of the bar…see the comments below)

Again in another nice touch the donkeys dick is curled to avoid it accidentally releasing if you catch it on you harness while pulling the bar in too close.

Switch Element 2012 Kite Kitesurf 04

The Kite

The kite is a 3 strut affair with a one pump system. The first thing you notice it when inflating it is the inflate valve. Looking something of a cross between the Cabrinha system and the Liquid Force system it’s a one way valve that requires a specialist nozzle but massively reduces inflate/deflate times. You get one of these nozzles attached to the pump and in case you lose it or forget your pump that day there’s a spare one attached inside the front pocket of the bag. The whole system works very well and we love the “screw me or lose me” reminder on the kite, ensuring you close the valve every time you pack the kite away…whilst obviously smiling and thinking of the second most fun thing to do in the world!

The kite itself has all the features that you would expect from a modern kite but that non of us really understand. Kevlar reinforcement, those funny handles on the wind tips to self rescue with, and all the technical bits with overly complicated names that i’m not going to get into here. Most importantly it looks solid, stylish and well made.

The ultimate question of course is how does it fly? 

Quite frankly brilliantly. We have an 11m Element and I have to say it feels more like a 9m it’s that fast. Super stable with easy relaunch, it does everything you’d want in an all round kite with a nice balance of low and top end, decent boosting and an easy, fluid feel.

Now we’ve only had ours about a month so have yet to really test it’s construction but at long as that holds I do think we could be starting a long love affair with Switch kites.

[youtube height=”315″ width=”560″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKBie6SJuM0[/youtube]

Cut The C***!

Now I hate these reviews in kite mags that simply blow sunshine up kite manufacturers asses because they rely on them for advertising and I always promised myself it was something we would stay well away from and so I have to put something detrimental about these kites, my conscience simply won’t allow me to be so sugary.

If I had to pick one thing it would be the customer service at Switch often leaves something to be desired…these guys do not respond to email well. We’ve sent them quite a few emails over the past few weeks and either had to wait a long time for a reply or more commonly simply received no reply at all. The best way to get in touch seems to be through the live chat on their web site which in fairness is manned fairly consistently

All in all though this kite is quite frankly awesome, it looks and handles like a kite that you’d expect to pay around 1400€ for and the 11m kite and bar cost us 822 € delivered to our door, I just really don’t think you can argue with that.

This article was taken from Tantrum Kitesurf Magazine…start your FREE trial today!

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What Are These Line Extensions On My Kitesurf Lines?

Kitesurf Line Extensions

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Kitesurf Line Extensions

Why does my kite have line extensions?

Something many people new to the sport wonder when they unpack they’re first kite is why do the lines split apart at one point in to 2 lines, 1 much longer (generally between 18-20m) and the other generally between 3 and 5m.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about have a look at your lines next time you roll them out. If it’s a fairly new bar then most likely about 3 metres from the end (it could be at either end) you’ll see that the lines are spliced and then joined together with 2 interlocking loops. (If you’re lines don’t have this don’t sweat it, not all lines do).

These line extensions are designed to give you more flexibility when flying your kite. Without getting too technical, as the kite moves faster it gains more power. The kite will move faster if it is given more space to move in (as it has more time to build up speed). Thus by making the lines shorter we reduce the amount of space the kite has to move in, so reducing it’s top speed and reducing the amount of potential power available.

Why would you want to do this?

Well for a start it means that you can use your kite in a wider range of conditions, so a kite on 20m lines will be more manageable in higher winds than the same kite on 23m lines, more value for money…bonus.

The other side effect of shorter lines is the kite responds much quicker, so it will turn faster and react quicker. This is due to the reduced lag (the longer the lines the more they tends to bag out behind the kite thus reducing transmission time) and the more severe angle from the lines up to the wing tips.

Why does this matter?

Well lets say you’re looking to go wave riding. Having a kite that responds much more quickly to your input is very useful when you’re cranking out those top turns. The reduced length also makes re launch that much easier for the reasons explained above, which can be crucial when your in the impact zone with some mean looking waves.

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Waist vs Seat Harnesses in Kitesurfing

Waist Harness

Waist Harness

Which One Should YOU Be Wearing?

Seat Harnesses

The Seat Harness

Advantages

The main advantage of the seat harness is that that they will not ride up around your armpits. The leg straps keep the harness firmly in place around your waist meaning that beginners and those with lower back problems find them much more comfortable.

Support

They are often larger and more bulky than waste harnesses and so offer plenty of support. The spreader bar is also naturally positioned slightly lower down than on a waist harness and sits perfectly at your centre of gravity. Once riding this makes it easier for you to really crack the kite while resisting with your entire body weight.

Disadvantages

The greatest disadvantage of the seat harness is the looks, to say it looks uncool is something of an under statement….it looks like you’re wearing a nappy.

The other major problem for us gents when wearing a seat harness is that the leg straps can get wrapped around our nether regions and lead to some fairly unpleasant consequences and some fairly high pitched squeals, especially while jumping or performing high-powered maneuvers.

Because of the extra bulk they also much less comfy and more restrictive than waist harnesses.

My biggest problem with seat harnesses for those who can actually ride is that they allow you to sit down on the power of the kite, rather than counter balance it by leaning out. This leads to many new riders developing a “shitting” stance while riding i.e. bum stuck out, legs heavily bent, as it seems much easier and safer to control the power coming through the kite that way.

Problems with a seat harness

Unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth. In this position you have no ability to counter balance the pull of the kite and the first gust of wind or wave will likely send you sprawling over the front of the board. Conversely with your hips forward and your head thrown back, you simply push your hips forward a little more and lean back and you can eat up massive gusts.

If you look at the photo above you can clearly see if he pushed his hips forward and threw his head back, he would be in a much better position to handle the pull from the kite.

Waist Harnesses

Advantages

Waist Harness

Sex Appeal

They look cool, possibly the greatest advantage and most probably the reason why they are more popular on the beach is that waist harnesses look a lot cooler than seat harnesses. They are less bulky, have less straps and generally come in more creative designs. This alone is a good enough reason for most people to chose to wear them even if ignorant of the rest of the pro’s and con’s.

Comfort

In general they are also less bulky and thus more comfortable than seat harnesses. While the lack of leg straps give you a greater range of motion whilst wearing one. Indeed many people loosen their waste harnesses whilst riding to enable the harness to slide around as the kite and their body moves and several waist harnesses are now being built with slider spreader bars which move from right to left as your body position changes.

Shag Don’t Shit

For me the greatest advantage of Waist Harnesses are that they force the new rider into the correct posture. Because they will ride up round your armpits if you attempt to sit down on them, they force you to push your hips forward and fling your head back in that classic “shagging” position that leads to comfortable, controlled riding. If you try to sit down on the harness (in the “shitting” position) as can happen with seat harnesses, the harness will ride up around your armpits.

Classic Stance

Looking at this shot you can see that all Maria has to do here is drop a little bit of weight back (or throw her head a little further to the back) and she can easily control any gusts coming from the kite (this would also have the effect of pulling her harness down), her hips are pushed much further forward and the weight of the entre body is counterbalancing the kite

Disadvantages

The Wonderbra Effect

As mentioned before the waist harness can ride up, this is especially pertinent to beginners who are flying the kite an awful lot around the 12 o’clock position. This not only looks ridiculous but it is amazingly uncomfortable (but can be a great look for male onlookers if the subject happens to be a girl in a skimpy bikini!).

Pain In The Arse

Waist Harnesses also tend to sit higher on the body than seat harnesses. This can lead to more pressure through the lower back whilst riding and many people with lower back pain prefer seat harnesses because of this.

Crank The Kite

These harnesses also sit naturally slightly above most peoples centre of gravity, the bend between your hips and your stomach. This can make it slightly more difficult to really lean against the kite and drop all your weight on it when needed…ie when generating “pop.”

Boardshorts Harness

To Conclude

So all in all, seat harnesses are generally preferred by beginners due to the fact that it will not around your armpits and is more supportive and easier through the early stages of learning to fly a kite. Once people progress to riding upwind and starting their 1st tricks they generally move onto waist harnesses. For people with back problems I would always recommend seat harnesses.

On a side note there is now a range of seat harnesses that incorporate themselves into board shorts (they are actually stitched inside the lining of the shorts themselves). This eliminates one of the seat harnesses greatest disadvantages in that they actually look quite cool!

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How To Launch A Kite From A Boat

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We got asked this question on our Instructor Q & A and seeing as we don’t currently operate a boat we had to turn to the guys from The Cabrinha Quest for the best answer. These guys have spent 5 years launching and landing kites from boats and so certainly know what they’re talking about.

Text and Photo’s taken from The Cabrinha Quest…possibly the most awesome kitesurfing adventure on the planet

Step 1)  The Rider unravels all the lines from the bar starting at the stern of the boat, zigzagging the lines while moving towards the bow.  Turn the bar over so the right side is on the left (i.e. upside down as you would with a downwind beach set up).

Organize your lines

Step 2)  The Assistant attaches a line manager like the  “Kitelauncher” to the lines at the bar end.  The Assistant carefully holds the line manager and slides it towards the ends of the lines while the Rider winds the lines back onto the bar as you normally do.

Leave slack in the lines and keep them on top of the kite

Step 3)  When the Assistant reaches the ends of the lines you are ready to attach the kite (leave about 20 feet of the lines off the bar to provide slack to attach the lines and blow up the kite).  Lay the kite out in a suitable location at the stern of the boat.  If you are using a kite with independent struts, fill them up, BUT DO NOT INFLATE THE LEADING EDGE.  With the kite on its back (exactly like you would inflate a kite on the beach) very carefully attach the lines from one side to the other (eg steering line, center line, center line, steering line), being very careful to not cross any lines.  We find it useful to only detach one line at a time from the line manager.  Note the lines will be correctly attached (left and right side) because we flipped the bar over in Step 1.

Launching the kite

Step 4)  The Assistant inflates the leading edge, BEING VERY CAREFUL TO KEEP THE LINES ON TOP OF THE KITE.  Do not allow the lines to go around the back of the kite.  Once inflated, the Assistant can now hold the leading edge and is ready to launch the kite.

Step 5)  The Rider hooks into the chicken loop, removes a few coils of lines and enters the water.  The rider then swims at a right angle to the boat, removing lines carefully from the bar, making sure none go around the back of the bar (if you are in an area with strong current you may find it useful to unwind the lines and jump off the bow of the boat, which makes the swim into position easier). The Rider uncoils all the lines and the Rider and Assistant check the lines to make sure they are clean.  We find it useful for the Rider to be slightly upwind of a typical beach launch so the kite is “hot launched” slightly.

Launching the kite

Step 6)  Once the kite is launched the Rider body drags towards the boat and the Assistant throws the board to the Rider.

The bucket method

This video shows a slightly different method where rather than re rolling the lines back up onto the bar after sorting them out and attaching them to the kite they are simply rolled (starting at the kite end) into a bucket. In all other respects this method is the same as the one above.

[youtube height=”315″ width=”560″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8GIJ2V6f3A[/youtube]

Which of these 2 methods works better for you will be one of personal preference, but these are the methods we and the IKO recommend.

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Kitesurfing The North Coast Of Scotland

Armed with a battered map and their kite kit, local Scarborough surfer turned kitesurfer and the Big Cheese at Tantrum Kitesurf’s centre in the UK, Mike Andrew, and a couple of other intrepid souls headed to the wildest coast of the UK with the mission to chase the wind and waves wherever they may find them…

The Concept

So the concept of the trip was a hardcore exploratory kiting trip, exploring the far north of Scotland. We looked at the map and after a bit of chat in the pub (where all best plans are made) decided that it could actually work. It’s always windy up there and I knew from my surfing days that the waves were incredible and there are all these little forgotten bays miles from anywhere and anyone.

Originally we had thought we would just chase the wind but in the end we found this fantastic place where we actually based ourselves, the Poor House. It was fantastically located. Within an hours drive east or west we had four or five really great spots, right on the doorstep.

Kitesurfing Scotland

The actual trip was a combination of lessons for the beginners and hardcore kiting and surfing for the more experienced.

The Spots

We found some awesome spots. Not for the faint hearted or those that miss their creature comforts. You don’t wander onto the beach and set up in comfort in the warmth and then toddle on out. It was all a bit tense at times in that we were miles from support and civilisation, exposed to the elements and the north coast can be RAW.

Torresdale was good, we had a great session at the lagoon there. It was really funny. We went out and it was heavy winds, I was a 10 and Lawrence was on his 11. I was very impressed, I saw Lawrence about 20 or 30 feet up, what I didn’t realise is that it was completely unintentional. I was tearing back and forth because for me it was fantastic, because finally I had some power and I looked over and thought, “Jesus, he’s doing well. I have got to up my game here.” But he just got lifted, afterwards I just saw him standing there for about 20 minutes. I went over and said, “What’s wrong?” He said, “I am terrified, I want to go in and get my board, but I can’t land my kite.” So we brought his kite down and he was fine in the end. But we had to buy him a few beers for that.

Kitesurfing Beaches of Scotland

One of the high points especially for the guys coming from abroad was the first night we went to the local pub. We didn’t know there was some local celebration, I’m not sure whether it was a funeral or a birthday. But the whole locality were out, all 20 of them! I roped the Dutch guys into some traditional Scottish dance. Unfortunately I got caught up too, no matter how much I hid, I could not get away.

Waves

We had tons of waves. Torresdale was actually scarily big the whole time. and this is in the context of not having any swell. At the Kyle of Tongue, you have got waves on the beach, similar in a way to Tarifa, but perhaps just breaking out just a bit further, a bit more solid. But within that you have got a massive sandbank with a right hand point break that breaks for about 300 yards. You have waves just breaking for miles and miles and miles. You just kite straight out into it.

Space

In the whole time we were there, we never saw another kite. The only kiters we saw were the people who joined us.

Balmichael has been kited before, although the local guy we met said he can’t remember when. But Balmichael is a very popular surfing beach. Apparently kiters have never ever been seen on the Kyle of Tongue before. No one has ever kited Torresdale before (as far as we know). So we were kiting places that, we think, we were the first on.

One place we had to visit was Torresdale. It has a good beach, a lagoon at the south end, one at the east end and another lagoon at the north end. But to get to the beach you had to either kite across a river or a lagoon or paddle across in a kayak, which we did. We also found a great beach where we could teach the beginners called Balmichael. You just drive up to the beach, go through a gate and you’re on the beach…perfect. It had a 180 degree direction reach and so can be kited in most conditions.

Enough Space?

The Kyle of Tongue I think was probably one of the best kiting destinations I have ever seen, absolutely amazing. A massive inlet, into what is almost a loch, but with access to the sea. About five miles long and between one and two miles wide. But most importantly, about halfway up there’s a massive spit about 500 metres long, straight out into the middle of it. Wind direction wise it was phenomenal because it works in anything…360 degrees!

The seaward facing side of the spit had waves, the landward facing side, which was only about 50 to 100 yards wide, was effectively a lagoon. So you could kite from the lagoon into the sea and then from this section around the top of the spit, and into the flat section.

During the fortnight the winds were not the most favourable. The prevailing wind is strong west and south west and we got strong north and north eastern. So it made life a bit more difficult but still, the conditions were fantastic. So, if we had that south westerly wind, it would just be mind blowing. Absolutely mind blowing.

Kitesurfers at Melness

So we spoke to the guy who lives at the Kyle of Tongue and he had never seen kites before. We actually had some locals run down with cameras, one of them was a really good photographer and took some really great pics. They were really excited. So, I think two or three of the places have never been kited before and there were half a dozen others, that in the right conditions, you could kite all day.

Not For Pansies

This is not a trip for the faint hearted, some of the guys struggled, they were fine on the lagoons and stuff, but as soon as they got into the proper sea…well, when you see the waves, and the winds biting and there are seals and slamming surf, you feel exposed.

Next Trip

The same sort of time, late summer, 2018. I’m thinking of doing a couple of weeks in the same format, just hop on and off, in the Inner and Outer Hebrides. So it is a case of, “Where is the wind? Let’s go there.”

Interested in joining us on an epic adventure through the best kitesurfing this wild coast has to offer, we’ll be promoting this mainly through our Facebook group so  Join us HERE >> and if we get enough interest we’ll make it happen