Muskiz Wave Session

I'm not saying that's *NOT* a good start for this season, but 6 kite sessions since the beginning of 2012 are definitely not too much. Reasons are different: lack of time, work (yes, we have to pay our bills), lack of wind... and a few other excuses. So as it is today, getting into the water actually means that almost all of the following factors  happens almost at the same time: waves not too big, wind not too strong or too light - and blowing during the daylight of course - the tide is ok, you are not on a business trip and your boss is not calling you, your wife hasn't ask you to get her to the mall... and if you have children, well... you know better than me. Put this all together and you could easily forget about kitesurfing.

Well, last saturday I managed somehow to have almost everything in shape. The wind forecasts promised some strong wind blowing from NW during the afternoon, perfect timing for me since I had some commitments during the morning in Bilbao. I arrived in Muskiz at 2:30 and went into the water as soon as possible. Good conditions: the wind was blowing up to 25knots (or more), low tide and 1 to 1.5m mushy waves. Perfect for my 10m Rebel and the surf board. Unfortunately we also had some rain showers but - hey! - this is the Basque Country, and it's winter time... what do you expect, 25°C and sun shining?

Check the video above!

Muskiz - 28.01.2012

We scored a new kite session yesterday in La Arena beach, Muskiz. During the past days the temperatures have fallen down to almost 5°C, so that we had a f..king freezing sail condition. The chilling rain surely didn't help, but guys... you know it: you have to face with such things if you want to sail in the Basque Country during winter time.... that's life. Nothing compared to what was our thought when we start kiting: sun, nice temperature, constant winds... cheeks... :-) something similar to what some friends are experiencing right now in Bonaire. 

By the way, we got into the water at 3pm. The wind picked up lille by little, I would bet that we had something like 18 average with gust up 23 knots, with 1mt mushy waves. I used my surf board (a Crazyfly 6'2") and the Rebel 10.0m and I was perfectly powered so I must confess this has been on of the best wave sessions I ever had... ok, I cannot say I'm too experienced anyway, but at least it's a start. I  enjoyed surfing those waves, I enjoyed carving...  even if the wind direction (completely on-shore) was not the best one... and that's the most important FACT. Who said "the best surfer out there is the one having the most fun"? I completely agree with him...

Because of the cold temperature I also weared a neoprene hat to witstand the freezing cold. It really works better than put neoprene gloves and shoes (which I dislike for several different reasons: lost of sensibility, painful harms...). If you are out in the water in a condition similar to what I described above, give it a try.

Laredo - January 2012

Let's start the new year with a nice session in Laredo. As usual, the wind blowing from E accelerates during the day up to 20kn thanks to the Venturi or Thermal effect (who knows...). Sun and really cold temperatures (finally the winter has arrived).

Here's the short video shooted with my GoPro and the Kitehero. Enjoy and Happy new year!

I'm too lazy for this...

As usual, I've forget to update at least once per month this. Sorry (to me first), It has been a quite busy period, few times into the water (actually only two since October I guess) and lots of other stuff. Of course the weather has not helped too much. Usually this is the southern wind season in the Basque Country, means very strong winds and really gusty. We missed a couple of session in Laida besides the weather forecasts were showing a consistent 20 to 30kn SE winds. There have been also some days when the wind was definitely too strong (that's why I need to buy a 7m kite...).
Now, thank to La Niña we are having a quite hot winter, no snow over the Pyrenees and the Alps, high temperature also in Germany (just came back from a business trip). By the way it seem we will have big storms from now on...
In the moment I'm writing this, there's an hurricane out there:  SW winds with gusts up to 160km/h. I went to take some picture this morning and it was spectacular. 9mt waves and onshore winds... WOW. Nobody was out there of course, it's definitely too dangerous and you would need a 3mt kite. Unfortunately I'm busy also during the weekends and I really doubt I will have the chance to go kiting a little bit before the end of the year. That's sad, I still have to try my waveboard, a brand new Crazyfly 6'2" Thunder:

 That's it. Next post will be the year 2011 sailing statistics...

Broken board and some videos

Ok Guys,
I definitely finish to break my kite surf board, and this time it's my fault (although, as everyone now has been able to check the "smoking paper" building quality of the x-tech RRD Fatal wave, this should have been happened sooner or later). The obvious suggestion is - never ever - surf in a 10cm deep water, which may sound familiar to most of you, not to myself three days ago. I was surfing in very low wind condition in Laredo during mid tide, my 13sqm GIN ZuluIII and some 30cm mushing waves. Not so funny but the surfboard let me ride somehow decently. The sand bar in front of me didn't seem too deep.  But I was wrong. The fin stucked into the sand, my heavy foot pushing on the top of the deck, the cracking sound coming from the bottom and myself screaming how stupid I've been. That's all the story... and the results:

By the way, due to my usual September "lazyness" I didn't post anything for almost one month and a half. That does not mean that we didn't had any nice kite sessions. Actually my personal counter scores 4  rides (not that much though), two of which at the Pantano del Ebro. Summer is lasting too much this year, with temperatures that are still quite high. We are all waiting for the chilly north coast winds and waves.
I'll let you with to videos from the Spaghetti Production. Enjoy!

Kalenji Keymaze 700 + 2011 Rebel 10m

Holidays are almost come to an end. We had lots of windsurfing session here, with south westerly winds that allowed us to surf almost every day. It has been a great August time here at the Circeo / Baia Felix.

There are some good news here guys. If you read the latest post you've noticed that a friend of mine used a GPS device to track his windsurfing sessions. I bought the same device with hearth rate monitoring system and I will test it during one of my MTB session. Let's see how it works. For sure, it's also water resistant (IPX7) so I think I could use it (withouth th HR stuff of course) during my freeride kiting sessions. I will hopefully post some stuff here soon.

Yesterday I was surfing on the web and came to the surfpirates.de website which has some stuff on sale. Since the new 2012 North Kites are already available for ordering, there are some great discounts for 2011 gear. If you are not interested in having the newest stuff always ready in your quiver, it's time to spend some money and do some good business out there... I just ordered a brand new 10m Rebel, black one, for some 800€ (bar NOT included). It should arrive next week.

For sure: my 2010 10m Rebel with bar is available for sale for only 650€ shipping included. Drop me a private message if interested.

Holidays!

Ok guys, I'm back to Italy on holiday since one week now, and I already scored four nice sessions (one with the kite, and three with the windsurf - yes, my beloved windsurf). The sun is finally shining over our heads, and it seems that summer time is bringing us some good thermal winds.
The best session I had can be described by the above picture: a friend of mine has a nice GPS watch and tracked down the Tuesday session. We sailed together to Torre Fico (upwind the harbor) in a nice landscape of Monte Circeo, our typical summer spot here in Italy. He's maximum speed was over 25 knots,  pretty good considering that he was sailing on a custom Temavento board and a 5.7m Naish sail. I was out with a 145 RRD X-Ride board which I borrowed (almost stole) and a 7.2m Point-7 AC-0 sail. The wind was not so strong, I didn't measure it but I bet it was not blowing more than 22 knots. Nice session, Maurizio... let's repeat (..but please remember to switch the GPS off when going home :-) )!

How to exchange the depower line on a 2010/11 North Trust Bar

Im writing this post because after days spent on the internet looking for some information related to the above subject, I've been able to find just a short video (see above) related to the 2009 bar which doesn't fit well to what I needed, especially bacause as you know in the latest release of the trust bar the North team added what they call "iron heart", a little piece of metal which connect the depower line to the chicken loop.  A heck of iron piece. So arm yourself with patience when trying to disconnect it.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not responsable for any mistake here. You are always responsable of what you are fixing. Don't blame on me if you do something wrong. Always check your depower line and bar before getting out to the water!

Before starting with the exchange please make sure you have one screwdriver (flat head) and eventually an hammer. Put the bar on a flat surface, detach the rear and front lines and extend them as you are going to connect them to your kite.

Once you've done this, start disconnecting the used depower line. Please make sure to remember all the passages since you won't have any problem at the time you'll need to reconnect everything. The best way is to let all the item in the same place (better if you are on a flat surface): the vario cleat, the stopper ball, the micro loop... just slide the depower line till the iron heart.

Now it comes the first problem (this is valid in my case, just read on). If you are not used to clear with fresh water you bar, you can find that the little "U" piece of metal that couple the plastic (black) part with the steel one completely stuck. Don't worry. Use the flat head screwdriver and with some little movements try to pull it out. I used an hammer in order to unstuck it (don't be too brute anyway since you can damage the iron heart); you can also use an awl and give two or three good hit on the other side, if you want.

Once you get it out, separate the plastic from the iron one. Separate the stopper ball and then the line fro the vario cleat. Well done, now you can change the depower line with the new one.

If you did everything correctly you can now follow all the passages back to the beginning. Insert the depower line (the splice must be inserted first, the pass the line through the splice). Remember to put the stopper ball and the sliding stopper in the correct position (the ball should be down the sliding stopper).
Now insert the depower line into the plastic part of the iron heart but wait,  don't close it with the U metal part.  Keep on going "back": the line should pass through the bar, again into the stopper ball, the sliding stopper, the vario cleat, then into the pulley and back to the vario (see the picture for your reference).

Ok, now the most difficult part: you need to pass the depower line through the trimline. I used and iron wire for this task: pass it through the trimline, insert it through the depower line, pass it again through the trimline. Now gently pull it till the depower line is inserted. Make a knot to fit it in the correct position.

The last part: sheet your bar all the way out as if you are depowering the kite. The depower line should have the same length (see picture). Now you can insert the plastic part into the metal one and insert the U metal ring to fix them togheter. You're done!

A new arrive: GIN ZULU III

I recently bought a new kite, a GIN Zulu III in a 13sqm size. Yesterday I tested it at the Pantano del Ebro spot, at around 1h and a half car ride from Bilbao, a typical summer spot in the Cantabria autonomous region here in Spain. The wind was not too strong and was really gusty but I had some fun anyway. As I recently sold my 2010 Cabrinha Crossbow to a friend of mine I needed a big sail to ride in low wind conditions. As I've been testing the previous GIN Zulu II model some time ago (check this post here) in a smaller size, I decided to give it a chance.

I must confess I've been impressed by the  GIN Zulu III. First of all, the kite construction is comparable if not better than most of more advertised kites. The canopy seems to be bomb proof, the bar is spectacular with its innovative safety system. The kite has 5 struts and a 4 lines system.
In action: it turns really quick even in this big measure, generating a lot of power and allowing the rider to easily pass wind holes. The kite responds quickly to bar pressure (I tried it in the "freestyle" configuration) and it's not as hard as the Crossbow (something which I really hated about the Cabrinha kite). My impression is that it also has a wide wind range, probably more than GIN itself advertise. I will check anyway and give some more feedback later on. Check the following video I recorded yesterday which shows the turning abilities of this wonderful kite.

An update about the wave board I recently sent to repair. I'm in contact with RRD to see if it's a construction problem. I sent them some pictures and a complete report of the damages. Let's see if they can sort this out.

Muskiz - La Arena

While I'm fighting against RRD to have my board either substituted or repaired within the warranty terms, on the last Tuesday we had a nice session in Muskiz, La Arena beach, just at 10 minutes ride from Bilbao. Conditions were inconsistent, with the wind blowing from W/NW quite gusty (I would say 14 to 25kn) and 1.5mt waves in the outside. I got into the water late, waiting for some friend, but I must say it was quite funny. I borrowed a kite waveboard and noticed the differences from my RRD: the deck is definitely more robust, the board's weight is higher. I didn't care since you I couldn't feel the heavier board while in the water; moreover a higher weight helped me out in those typical "bump-and-jump" condition of the Cantabric sea.

Meanwhile I'm preparing for holidays. I will spend almost one month back to my home country. My kites (and my wife, of course) will join me during the trip. Please, keep your finger crossed for RRD warranty (I'm not too confident, anyway...). Stay tuned!