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lunedì, novembre 15, 2010

Andy Irons Memorial - 14.11.2010



Hasta luego, Andy.

New kites and Laida/Kanala sessions

P1040822

Let's start from the good news: during the last week end  we had two beautiful sessions in Kanala / Laida. It has been better on saturday, in Kanala, where the wind was consistent and allowed us to use the small kites (thanks to my friend who lent me a Gin Zulu II, 9sqm). Good air/water temperature, wonderful sunny day, we stayed 4 hours in the water. Kanala is definitely a good spot, plenty of space for mounting/dismounting your kite, some grass and some sand for hassle-free packing. Water level allows beginner to sail safely... and no problem with offshore winds since there's a sand bar that allows you to recover easily in case of problems. The only drawback consist in the long path to reach the spot, or better said on the way back: there's steep set of stairs waiting for you and your -usually at the end-  heavy gear.
As I said, I tried my friend's new Gin "Zulu II" kite. I'm not really good in trimming the kite, and at the beginning I had the impression that even if the wind was quite strong, the kite was not pulling hard as expected.  Then we modified (thanks, Manu!) the bridle position and everything changed. Good jumps and quick turns, crashes of course, but I'm quite satisfied with the kite. I personally prefer my Rebel, but Gin kites seems to use strong material and a they have a good construction quality. Prices are of course lower than the usual well-known big brands.



On friday we arrived a little bit too late so our session lasted a couple of hours only. I got into the water with the Rebel 10sqm which was too small at the beginning. Unfortunately - and this is the bad news -  the pulley of the bar got broken (since the bar is a used one,  I already asked for a free replacement) so I stayed out of the water trying to recover the lines during more than 20mins... meanwhile my friend did me a favor and mounted my Cabrinha Crossbow 13sqm. The wind initially was flaw, but at the end of the day it started blowing stronger and stronger and I was a little bit overpowered... as usual, with the cabrinha bar so hard I had to use only one hand to depower the kite.... but it was still funny. The session ended just after the sunset in a gorgeous landscape; the silhouette of the barrows and the light reflected by the water... it was magical.  We had to pack our gear at the light of the lampposts, but it definitely worth seeing it.