Here is some footage I captured on my Olympus waterproof camera. I just had a great waveriding session myself at Daymer Bay, and grabbed a few clips of Smiler kitesurfing on what must be the longest wave in Cornwall…
Just look how nice and mellow that wave is! On a northerly wind, the swell cleans up and it blows cross shore down the line the whole way. Gets a bit flukey on the inside at high tide, but the wave is so mellow and so spaced apart that you get loads of time to link your turns in. Looking good for kiting at Daymer on tuesday, I’ll grab some more footage if I remember.
Following on from the post below about old school landboaring images. This first one was taken by Si Mitchell (www.noseriders.com). He’s a great mate and also the editor of Powerkite magazine and one of the most prolific kiting photographers in the UK. He also has his own online longboarding magazine, www.corduroylines.com. So anyway, this was taken when I had a quiver of Peter Lynn Phantoms. Great kites for old school big air and good wind range too – for the day.
This one was taken in the US, during a session with the guys from www.catchsomeair.us. Unhooking here. The kite I’m using is a Peter Lynn Venom 10m.
The old classic unhooked foot out. The one footer has a place in the learning curve of just about everyone who gets into landboarding. It’s safe move but like the board off feels great and looks great with a load of height too.
Just a regular unhooked indy to finish this post off with.
The last few days I’ve been testing kites like mad for Kitesurf mag and we couldn’t have had better conditions for it. Strong north winds have been blowing down here in Cornwall and Daymer Bay and Hawkers cove have been lighting up. The crew from Edge – Eric and Steph Bridge were down one day and scored Daymer Bay going off! The point was rattling away and although I was on a twin tip (I was testing the new North X Ride 09) I made the 20 or so tacks upwind to check it out. Head high plus walls, some of the longest rides in the South West for certain.
As well as this, had a good session one morning in the Newquay Bay at Town Beach – you don’t often get the chance to kitesurf in Newquay Bay because it takes a north east wind to get in there, and is heavily afffected by tides and not to mention usually crowded out with people learning to surf – which is their right and kiters should head elsewhere when it’s like that.
One particularly memorable session was at Watergate Bay, testing the new North Evo 09 delta kite. I was riding a strapless surfboard and there was just me and my mate Will Bennet (www.atlanticriders.co.uk) out there. Usually you don’t get much swell on a northerly wind but this ground swell was just building the whole afternoon. We were kitesurfing until dark, and the swell was building the whole time as was the wind strength. It was bouncy as hell and I found myself coming off the board a bit, but when I was Will having similar troubles – although he didn’t come off his board half as much as I did – I knew that it wasn’t just me having a shocker! Anyway, it was strange because the waves were really clean, overhead and getting more sucky as the tide dropped out. Watergate Bay doesn’t awlways have the punchiest wave for kiting – it always has size – but this day was rapidly turning out to be a classic. Pull the bar in to drop into a wave, then push it out, depower the kite (helps if your’re on one of the latest bow / delta / hybrid kites!) and just surf. So this last week, my interest in the sport has just gone into overdrive and I can’t wait for the northerlies to kick in again for tomorrow. May go for the cross shore option at Watergate Bay, downwind to the Newquay Bay playing in the unbroken swell all the way and then round the Town Headland – won’t be enough swell for The Cribber to break, but Fistral will be going off quite nicely if previous experience of these conditions is anything to go by. Bring on the wind!
