Kitesurf Academy | Tantrum Kitesurf

Posted on March 3, 2013February 1, 2023 by Tantrum — Leave a comment

Upwind Body Dragging

The purpose of learning to body drag upwind is two fold. Firstly, whenever you come off your board you’re going to find yourself downwind of it. To prevent yourself losing boards or at the very best having to return to the beach every time you fall off it, you need to be able to body dragged up wind to retrieve it.

The ability to body drag up wind is also vital from a safety point of view. Once you can body drag up wind you can happily get yourself back to the point where you launched from whether you have a board on your feet or not.

Squeezing The Soap

Upwind Body dragging is very simple in theory and the principle is very similar to that of squeezing a bar of soap between your hands. Think of one hand as the pull from the kite and the other the resistance offered by your body against this pull. The result of these 2 opposing forces on the soap is that it shoots out in a perpendicular direction to both forces.

You are the soap.

To get yourself into the one-handed body dragging position you firstly need to change the angle of your body. Rather than just following the kite as we have been doing up to now you’ll want to change the angle of your body to resist the pull of the kite. It is this resistance which will “pop” you out in an upward direction.

Roughly speaking to start with, your body should be angled just about 10° up wind to start with. Once you have turned your body to this angle you need to turn onto your side. One of the commonest mistakes of upwind body dragging is that people stay lying on their stomach. At this angle your body provides only a small (in most cases!) area of resistance against the kite. By turning on your side (as most of us are wider in this dimension) you’re able to provide more resistance against the pull from the kite. Lock your legs out as stiff as a board and point your free hand in the direction you are going to give yourself extra grip in the water.

The kite should be as low in the window as you can manage (45 degrees is fine for now) and de powered, so it sits far forward in the window. You may want to trim the kite to aid this. Now the pull of the kite and your intended direction of travel are as close to each other as possible. The kite should also be still. Every time you move the kite it generates power, this power will pull you up and out of the water and downwind whenever it can. By keeping the kite still we reduce its power to a minimum and keep its angle close to our intended direction of travel.

If It Feels Like You’re Drowning…You’re Doing It Right

It’s very simple to know whether you’re upwind body dragging correctly as when you are, you will feel like you are drowning. It is a horrible sensation which I’m afraid to tell you doesn’t get much better with time. Often the worse it feels the more upwind you are going, so dig in and get it done.

The time a lot of people lose a lot of their upwind progress is when it comes to turn. Firstly you should be keeping your runs fairly long, as a guideline I would suggest a minimum of 20 m each to reduce the amount of turns you need to make. When you do come to turn, de power the kite fully and move it slowly across to the other side, keeping as much as your body in the water as an anchor as you possibly can. As soon as the kite is in position on the new side resume the upwind body dragging position and carry on. Many people try to get the turn done as quickly as possible and bring the kite rapidly from one side of the window to the other, this generally has the effect of lifting you out of the water and downwind, undoing all the good work you’ve just done.

Practice this until you can at least exit the water at the same point that you enter if not slightly higher.

Posted on January 16, 2013January 23, 2022 by Tantrum — 3 Comments

Should I Wear A Board Leash Whilst Kitesurfing?

Whether to use a board leash or not is something that every aspiring kitesurfer asks at some point. Here I lay out the arguments for and against so you can make up your own mind.

What is it for?

Board leashes were designed to prevent you from losing your board. As a beginner you will be coming off your board and crashing your kite lots. Having a board leash on gives you one less thing to worry about while your struggling to re launch your kite as you don’t have be concerned that your board is disappearing as you go. Leashes however, have several spin off advantages which can be even ore useful to the aspiring kitesurfer than the use for which they were originally intended.

The main advantage to wearing a board leash for the beginner is that while your practicing to board start or enjoying your first runs on the board you won’t have to spend time chasing your board around every time you fall off or let go of it. This can lead to you having much more time to actually practice your board starts/riding skills as opposed to your body dragging skills. This simple piece of equipment can decrease your learning time by hours even days if the water state is pretty rough or the local conditions not ideal.

Added to this is the fact that by using a board leash you have 2 hands free at all times to control the kite. This can be a huge advantage if you’re trying to drag out through big waves or if you’re still not 100% confident on the kite.

Mother Nature is her own Guardian

Having said that however, I firmly believe that Mother Nature sets up her own gateways to entry and that if you are at a stage where you are struggling to either recover your board all the time by body dragging or you can’t get out through the waves while flying the kite one handed you shouldn’t be practicing with a board at all, but should be working on these skills instead.

The major problem here is that we are all human, we all over fixate on getting on the board and riding and will tend to push ahead to master these (cool) skills first, coming back to polish the other (less impressive) skills (such as upwind body dragging…yawn) later in our kitesurfing careers.

This leaves massive gaps in your skill set that WILL come back to bite you later on.

The Cruise Missile of Kitesurfing

When it comes to the down sides of using board leashes the consequences are slightly more scary.

Riding with a board attached to you is not dissimilar to being chased by a guided missile.

If you come off the board at any speed, tension can stack in the line and when the leash reaches it’s elastic limit there is only one way it’s going…straight back at you. This can lead to some very nasty accidents and it for this reason that if you are going to use a board leash you should also have a helmet and impact vest/buoyancy aid to protect your vital parts.

Before you think, “that’ll never happen to me and the advantages sound great, I’m gonna get me one of those,” I would do a quick internet search on “kitesurf board leash injuries” and see if you still want to wear one!

Watch Your Tender Bits

The leash can also be a hindrance when exiting the water. If you dally in the shallows the board has a tendency to get picked up by the waves as they ebb off the beach. The next wave to arrives then picks up the board and slams it into your heels/shins/other tender bits! When exiting the water with a leash in waves do it fast or unattach the board before you try.

The same applies when you have a leash in bigger waves. If the board gets behind you, then the next passing wave can pick the board up and slam it into you.

Of course these things can also happen even if you don’t have a leash but the leash keeps the board closer to you and so increases the likelihood of something like this occurring.

What About Dog Leash Style Leashes (Reel Leash)?

There are some reel leashes that are designed like dog leashes, that extend out to about 30 meters and after they have extended this far release very easily so you never have the problem of slingshotting the board back towards you. Great you may think I’ll go and buy one of those.

Any leash can get wrapped around either you or your bar and lines, with the latter being particularly serious as this effectively strangles your control of the kite often locking the kite onto full steering and sending the kite into a roll with the board dangling around in front of you as you fly down the beach…conveniently enough, the perfect position to wallop you in the kisser.

As these dog style leashes are even longer than normal leashes the likely hood of this happening is even greater…the idea of riding around with potentially 30m of slack line somewhere in my vicinity scares the bejesus out of me just thinking about it anyway.

But I have a fuse line on my leash so it will break if any force is put through it.

Coming off the board at speed with a leash should result in the leash attachment line (or the fuse line) breaking so that the board isn’t damaged. If this line is too strong (and you’ll never know until you use it!) or doesn’t break for some reason (more likely), as well as all the consequences to you, it can result in damage to the board as something has to give. I’ve seen huge chunks torn out of boards because of this.

Dependency & Withdrawal

The other issue attached to wearing leashes is more practical in nature. By becoming dependent on a leash you reduce the time you’re practicing upwind body dragging. This is an essential skill which needs to be mastered early if you are to progress to becoming an independent kitesurfer. Believe me, I spent a year learning this particular skill and the hours of time I wasted and the number of boards I lost because of my stubborn refusal to learn cost me more than I like to think.

The Alternative

Go Joe’s may have a stupid name but these things really work!

The idea is that you fix the Go Joe on to your board under the handle. Now whenever you come off the board the Go Joe causes the board to automatically right itself, the wind catches the Go Joe and pushes it downwind…fast, so it should end up in front of you.

We trialled these for a while and although they work great they did suffer from durability problems as the bladders just kept exploding on us.

What About In Waves?

Ok so this is the only time I would contemplate wearing a board leash. In big waves you’ll often be riding on reef breaks, cliffs or ridiculously remote beaches where to lose your board would mean it gets smashed to pieces on the rocks or it’s a MAJOR ball ache to retrieve it.

In wave spots a lot of riders will be concentrated in the same area (the line up) and having you body dragging through it and a loose board caught in the waves becomes a real pain in the neck and a real danger to others respectively.

These great tips are taken from The Kiteboarder Magazine.

Use a medium length leash: a 6-foot leash will put the board in your face and a 9 to 10 foot leash will cause too much drag. An 8-foot leash seems to work the best.
Use a cord thickness commensurate with the size of your waves -thin leashes snap in double overhead waves, thick leashes cause excessive drag.
The moment you are separated from your board, depower your kite by pushing the bar away from you; this prevents the kite from loading up the board leash.
When in the water separated from your board, bring your kite up to neutral, keeping it depowered as much as possible to prevent the board from becoming a tombstone.
When you are retrieving the board, use the leash – it often helps if the kite is brought to the same side of the wind window as your board.
Try experimenting with a calf leash. Its velcro strap is large enough to attach just below your knee, elevating a good portion of the leash out of the water and reducing drag.
Wear a helmet or chest protector because unless you have a surgeon for a friend or in the family, stitches can be expensive.

PROS OF WEARING A LEASH IN WAVES

In big surf you can go for anything and know that your board is always within arm’s reach.
You won’t spend half your session on a fishing expedition.
Your friends will no longer hate you for the countless times you body dragged through their set while looking for your board.
If you’re headed out and the lip throws right in front of you, you can jump off your board and duck dive into the wave, collecting your board quickly on the other side.
You have a better chance of getting back on your board before the next set wave rolls you.

CONS OF WEARING A LEASH IN WAVES

Bad technique can lead to endless tombstones and whizzing boards.
Leashes inevitably add drag while going upwind or dropping in on light wind days.
Since your board stays in your vicinity you have a better chance of getting whacked in the head.
If both you and your kite go down in turbulent white water, the board and leash can end up threaded through your flying lines making things much worse.

For me, unless I was in a dedicated wave spot which broke onto a reef or was kiting somewhere ridiculously remote I wouldn’t generally bother with a leash. I’d simply accept the fact that I was going to body drag a bit and get on with it.

The Final Word

If this all sounds like a very negative assessment of board leashes …well it is.

We used to use them, 2 smashed noses and a few trips to the hospital later, we vowed never to use them again. As a result of this decision our methods of teaching have had to adapt (and improve) and our students learning times have actually increased dramatically because of the changes we’ve had to make and the higher focus we’ve had to place on basic kite skills.

It also means I’m seeing far less of certain nurses at the local hospital…hmmm…maybe time for a re think!

If you’re just getting started in kitesurfing now’s a great time to grab our free 7 day kitesurfing specific workout. Giving you all the exercises you should be doing to get yourself in shape for your next session. Grab the free workout here >>

Posted on January 10, 2013March 28, 2018 by Tantrum — 2 Comments

Start Kitesurfing In Waves With A Surfboard

Nothing in the world quite compares to the feeling of catching your first wave. The surge of power through the board, the moment of silence when all that exists is you and the water, the thumping crash as you lean slightly too far and it all goes horribly wrong…or is that just me?

Wave riding requires a very different skill set to riding a twin tip board. Firstly there is the obvious difference between the shape of the board, which makes just riding up and down a very different experience. However wave riding also requires a different mentality – patience, aggression, harmony and sheer balls all have their place here. But the main feeling any long time wave rider experiences while surfing is a oneness with the wind and waves on a very spiritual level.

Surfing is damn hard

Surfing waves (in the traditional sense) is hard. Mainly because before you can actually get on the board and riding you need to learn how to ‘pop’ or stand up on the damn thing… which as you’ve probably guessed, isn’t that easy. One of the major advantages of kite surfing in waves is that you’re already stood up (most of the time) and so can forgo this painful process and just concentrate on having fun on the wave. Once on the wave the skill set required is so similar that many professional surfers are learning to kitesurf to give themselves more time riding thus improving their surfing performance. This means that if you do decide to take up (traditional) surfing, once you can get yourself stood up on the board the rest should be effortless.

Get out there

So now you’re all excited, how do you get started wave riding? While twin-tip boards can be used to sail on waves, they generally lack the volume to actually ‘catch’ a wave. This means that the easiest and probably the cheapest way to get started down the path of wave mastery is to simply dig out an old surfboard (or buy one cheap). You certainly do not need an expensive kite surfing surfboard to start having fun on the wave, any old surfboard will do. Personally I started an 8 foot mini-malibu board and I’ve seen guys taking out 10 foot Stand Up Paddle boards before. Of course you can invest in one of the specialist kite surfer surfboards and it will certainly make your ride more pleasant. But this is not a necessity for the beginner.

Getting on a bit?

Possibly the greatest advantage (at least to those getting on a bit) is that wave riding is not as physically demanding as freestyle. Now before we have an uprising, I’m not trying to say that you don’t have to be physically fit to wave surf…obviously you do, and the guys that ride big waves are amongst the fittest athletes on the planet. However surfing (on smaller waves) will not pull arms out of sockets as easily as handle passing will and is still a hell of a lot of fun. For this reason it’s not uncommon to see guys and girls of 60 + rocking up at the beach with their kite on their back and their surf board tucked under their arm, checking out the swell.

Adventure

Waves are generally shy creatures and like to stay out of the public eye, for this reason great wave spots have a tendency to be remote. Often just finding them requires a sense of adventure and a love for the wilderness. However the effort is nearly almost worth it, some of the most beautiful kite surfing spots in the world are wave destinations. Remote secluded bays with no one for miles, with just the surf and the wind (and occasionally your kite) pounding on the beach.

What…no Foot-straps?

One of the biggest concerns people have with wave riding especially when using an old surfboard, is the fact that they are often riding strapless (dedicated kite surfing surf boards do come with straps but many choose to remove them). This initially does take a little bit of getting used to. Once you’ve cracked it, it is a liberating and exhilarating feeling, which many claim is actually easier than riding with straps. The main difference comes when water starting. Given the extra volume and length of the surfboard it has a tendency to skew up wind whilst attempting to water start.

For this reason whilst water starting you need to pull in your back leg whilst pushing away with your front to force the board to point in a downward direction. I know, I know… this is exactly what you do on a twin tip, but believe me you have to really pull and push on a surf board, the longer the board the more exaggerated you have to make this.

Once you have mastered this technique actually riding is incredibly easy as the opposing forces of the wind and water actually glue you to the board (as I’m sure you’ll discover whilst you’re riding in very choppy conditions, this isn’t always 100% true, it is however, a well intentioned lie!).

Waves are big old boys…

There are no 2 ways about it, these guys can pack a punch. Under estimating the conditions or over estimating their own abilities are the biggest reasons for failure, embarrassment and injury amongst the newbie wave rider. The waves themselves have a tendency to sort the wheat from the chaff. As a simple rule if you can’t get out through the waves, you’re not good enough to be out there.

Many people new to wave riding may not have a clear idea of how powerful waves can be, even what would be classed as a small, 1m wave can have an incredible amount of power. Definitely enough to pick you up, dump you under and ditch you unceremoniously back on the beach with your kite wrapped around you. Definitely not a good look, and not one you need to experience, if you give the conditions the respect they deserve. Talk to locals, find out about local conditions, discover when high tide is, are there any rip tides or other hazards you need to be aware of? All this will boost your confidence and your ability to cope once you’re in the impact zone.

Making Friends With The Locals

Surfers are a territorial bunch but generally if they see you treating their spot with the respect it deserves…and a large part of this is taking the time to talk to them and garner some of their wisdom, they’ll help you out. If you just rock up at a spot, unfurl you kite and tear up the wave they’re waiting in the line up for, showing them no respect…expect pain.

Save Cash

Even if there are no waves having a surfboard in your quiver can give you other unexpected advantages. Because of a surf boards increased volume (floatiness), it will ride through lulls in the wind much more easily than a board of lesser volume and so can get you riding in much lighter winds. Thus armed with a surfboard and a twin tip board you can generally get away with less kites in your quiver than if you had just a twin tip, maybe needing only 2 kites to cover the same wind range as you would with just a twin tip and 3 kites. Boards cost less, get damaged less easily, and retain their value better than kites.

Posted on December 3, 2012March 16, 2016 by Tantrum — 2 Comments

The 3 Type’s of Wind & What They Mean For Your Kitesurfing

There are 3 different winds which we need to be aware of when kitesurfing. The 1st of these is the true wind, then we have induced wind and finally the apparent wind.

To best explain these let’s use a little example:

Imagine you are sat in a stationary car with your head sticking out of the window. The wind is blowing at a 90° angle to the car. This wind that you feel in your face while the car is stationary is what we call the true wind. That is it is the actual direction the wind is blowing in.

Now imagine that the car starts to accelerate slowly. As the car moves through the air, air flow is induced over the car in the opposite direction to which it is moving. This wind, created by the movement of the car through the air is called the induced wind.

At this point the laws of the universe had a problem. As it realised the wind couldn’t come from 2 directions simultaneously. So what happens instead is these 2 winds combine to form what is called apparent wind.

This is the wind you will feel on your face as the car is moving. So as the car speeds up you will sense the wind coming from nearer to the front of the car (in the direction of the induced wind), as the car slows down the wind will move back towards the position of the true wind. Apparent wind is basically a combination of induced and true wind, and depending on which one of these is stronger (ie if the car is moving faster than the true wind or vice versa) will influence the direction you feel the apparent wind coming from.

How This Applies To Kitesurfing

When riding in kite surfing the kite flies on this apparent wind. Because we are now moving over the water and the kite is moving with us, we are inducing airflow over the kite, this combines with the true wind which leaves the kite flying on apparent wind.

Still with me?

What this means in effect is that the faster you go on a kite the more the apparent wind shifts to be coming from a direction directly in front of you. This means that your wind window shifts further and further behind you as you speed up more and more.

It is for this reason that many beginners believe the while kite surfing the kite sits in the power zone. As this is often where the kite appears to be from the beach (as when your stationary the wind window does not move as the kite is always flying on true wind). However while riding the kite ALWAYS sits at the very front edge of the window. Obviously the faster you go the further back this front edge of the window will be as the apparent wind shifts further and further in front of you.

Imagine for a moment that you were going very fast. The apparent wind will be coming from almost directly in front of you and so the front of the window will be almost 90° downwind of you. This means that all the pull from the kite is in a down wind direction. This is why to go upwind we must ride slowly. By slowing down we bring the apparent wind closer to the true wind (ie further behind us) and the wind window moves back around in front of as (similar to how it is on the beach when we are stationary) this allows the kite to sit at the front of the window very close to our intended direction of travel. This way rather than the kite pulling us off downwind at breakneck speeds the angle of pull from the kite and our direction of travel are very similar.

This is quite complicated concept to get your head around, and to be honest isn’t essential for your kite surfing ability. However by understanding this you’ll be in a much better position to self analyse mistakes made as you progress in your kite surfing career.

Posted on December 3, 2012February 1, 2023 by Tantrum — Leave a comment

One Handed Body Dragging

Once you are back at the beach having mastered this, walk back up the beach with the kite at 45 degrees but this time try to use only one hand to control the kite.

If the kite is on the right hand side of you, you should fly it with your left hand, if the kite’s on your left, use your right. This way you have much more room to manoeuvre and don’t end up constricting yourself by having your elbow fighting for space with you hip. Your hand should be in the middle of the bar with your fingers being split between the index and 1st finger (or 1st and 2nd finger depending on what you find more comfortable). I like to have 3 knuckles on the ‘up’ side of the line with my index finger straight and my thumb opposing it underneath the bar. If at any point you feel yourself losing control of the kite go back to controlling it with 2 hands.

The idea of flying the kite 1 handed is that you do not have much leverage over the kite and so cannot move it too much. Whilst flying the kite with one hand we are attempting only to hold it in position, we do not want to move the kite too much with one hand and indeed if you find the kite moving quite a bit you will most likely have to go back to 2 hands to hold it in place or arrest its movement. For this reason make sure the kite is still at 45 degrees with 2 hands on the bar and then when you’re happy the kite is stable move to control it with just one hand.

NOTE: If at any point you lose control of the kite whilst flying it one handed immediately go back to control it with 2 hands.

OK so you’re happy steering using the kite whilst in the water and flying the kite 1 handed whilst on the beach. From here we can move on to combine the 2 in yup you guessed it, flying the kite 1 handed in the water.

The principle behind this is exactly the same as when we are flying one handed on the beach. With one hand on the kite you cannot move the kite too much (which actually helps in this exercise where we are trying to keep the kite still) This means if at any point you do lose control of the kite whilst in the water immediately go back to 2 hands to bring the kite back under control.

So back into the water and simply repeat the last exercise with one hand. Start to body drag and when you moving along in one direction with the kite stable at 45 degree move from 2 hands down to one hand with the same grip we had on the beach (ie kite on the left use your right hand and vice versa). When you want to change direction go back to 2 hands bring the kite through 12 o’clock onto the other side of the window, stabilise the kite and then move to one handed flying.

Again practice this exercise until you’re happy you can control the kite in both directions one handed.