Extreme Kite Surfing Video!!!

[all4tribal1414779019]

This is insane...not sure if it's real or not

http://youtube.com/watch?v=xeEp7kxNI9w&mode=related&search=

Any kite surfers in here? I see them everyday here by the beach in pompano beach

more techy videos

[Guest endymion]

Any kite surfers in here?

Yo.

Yes that video is real.

Season here for kiting is winter.

Check out Brad, paragliding from a standing launch on a dune up in my home town, Melbourne:

e-4eFGUeksk

[Guest endymion]

Oh BTW, to post the above video I hacked the board to add a [tt][/tt] tag. Anybody can use it like this to embed a YouTube video in a forum post:

[youtube]e-4eFGUeksk[/youtube]

The number that you stick in there is the number from the video in YouTube. You can clip it out of the URL, it's everything after the "v=" in the URL.

[Guest endymion]

More recent video from Brad. North of Sebastian Inlet last week:

00DpkXs0Kkg

He has some helmet-mounted camera footage that's seriously cool, I'm not sure if he has any in YouTube.

[Guest HouseJunkie]

Any kite surfers in here?

Yo.

Yes that video is real.

Season here for kiting is winter.

Check out Brad, paragliding from a standing launch on a dune up in my home town, Melbourne:

Cool trakk... does this take mad skills or was the wind speed just perfect that day?

[Guest endymion]

Cool trakk... does this take mad skills or was the wind speed just perfect that day?

Well it's a little of both. Not many people can just stand there on the ground and launch like that, it's a pretty new idea that requires a good pilot and a good spot. There are some spots in Lebanon, Baja, that one up near Melbourne. He's riding the updraft that hits the dune, and in Melbourne you get pretty steady and predictable winds year round. He had three perfect days in a row last week. In Miami there's not much kiting all summer because we just get no wind.

The vertical vault that the guy does with the traction kite in the first clip in this thread is unfortunately pretty easy to do. It's how most people get hurt. You should never fly the kite straight vertical like that when you're standing on the ground unless you're starring in an episode of "Jackass". One of the best kiters in the world was killed on Key Biscayne doing that about two years ago.

[all4tribal1414779019]

awesome videos tech! thanks for the cj/youtube video posting tip

I live over on a1a n commercial blvd in pompano beach, there's a school down the street on a1a also known as ocean blvd, i have to go check it out one of these days. Never done kite, taken lots of pictures and videos haven't posted any on youtube yet nor pics anywhere else. I find it pretty awesome, i guess i would have to start on the lessons, which aren't cheap if you go 1 on 1 w/ the instructor but they also do workshops.

http://www.southfloridakitesurfing.com

I'd also have to set some $ aside for the gear.

[Guest endymion]

You can teach yourself. Get about a 3m trainer kite and learn to fly it with your eyes closed. That will take a couple of weeks if you do it in the winter. 3m kites are cheap so getting started is simple.

Adding the board isn't too hard if you take the time to learn slowly. You spend a while boogie boarding around with kite action until you can get upwind. Then you stand up. Learning to tack takes another week, and then you're a kiter and you can learn how to do 30 foot jumps. The jumps are amazingly easy compared to learning to body drag upwind.

[all4tribal1414779019]

You can teach yourself. Get about a 3m trainer kite and learn to fly it with your eyes closed. That will take a couple of weeks if you do it in the winter. 3m kites are cheap so getting started is simple.

Adding the board isn't too hard if you take the time to learn slowly. You spend a while boogie boarding around with kite action until you can get upwind. Then you stand up. Learning to tack takes another week, and then you're a kiter and you can learn how to do 30 foot jumps. The jumps are amazingly easy compared to learning to body drag upwind.

sorry for the newby Q's but does the 3m kites come w/ everything i need minus the board? how much does that usually run? i know there are different boards as well, any you would recommend? im 6'5, 235lbs, size 13 shoes...i know in surfing it matters somewhat on your height if you don't want to have too short of a board.

[Guest endymion]

A 3m is a smallish kite that's for training you to pilot a traction kite. The real kites that you would use in this area for your size would be about 12 to 16 square meters. They cost more but you can get one used for a few hundred usually. You also need a control bar, which you can and should share between the trainer and the kite that you ride later on.

So you get a 3 - 6m trainer first, a few hundred, plus bar, like $100. Then you don't need a wake board for another month or two. Then you don't need a 'real' traction kite until after that and you get a used one. So you can stagger out all of the equipment, you don't have to buy it all at once. Some people do it REALLY cheaply, because plenty of kiters just don't have jobs or any other kind of life outside of jumping around on air.

Brad's paragliding rig is a whole different story. But he taught himself too, there are no instructors for that.

[Guest endymion]

Here's an ideal wind-and-water extreme sport for summers in Miami when there is no wind:

That guy is surfing an ocean swell, not a shore break. Because you can catch a big swell out in open ocean without needing it to break near shore, you can ride a single wave literally for miles. When you catch a wave you can get up to around 16-18 MPH and stay there indefinitely if you can stay on it. It's a religious experience.

You can find waves to ride on a surfski year-round in South Florida. From one-foot bumpy swells to eight-foot rhinos that will teach you to fear nature.

[Guest drlogic]

FYI....I took last thursday off from work and went to REEF ROAD, WEST PALM BEACH....

It was FOHK'N SICK! Dbl overhead on the inside and some triple overhead sets on the outside..WAAAAY OUTSIDE...winds were offshore most of the early morning! . Only those getting towed in on jetskis where catching those BOMBS! UNREAL! That's like Hawaii shit. VERY COOL TO SEE!

Bottom line...IT WAS BIG! and it looks like there's some good swell from this latest hurricane on the way for late next wknd......BUCKLE UP NIGGAHS!

[Guest endymion]

Right on, brother. True surfers would rather catch hurricanes than keep jobs.

Bottom line...IT WAS BIG! and it looks like there's some good swell from this latest hurricane on the way for late next wknd......BUCKLE UP NIGGAHS!

Hurricane surfing is even more fun when you take take the fight a couple of miles offshore and ride those rhinos home. Here, dig it, the swells they're surfing in this video are on par with what you see just off of Miami, Ft Lauderdale or West Palm when tropical storm swells are landing here.

The real extreme sport is to go out during a storm. I'm inching out into stronger wind each time a storm hits us. I was out in Tropical Storm Ernesto when the winds were at 40 MPH, but only on the bay because the wind was offshore and I've already been lost at sea alone before and it's not really very much fun.

The best thing about surfing swells on a surfski as opposed to board surfing shore breaks is that I don't have to wait for when the 'surf is up'. The surf is always up somewhere, on a ski you can go out hunting for waves.

[Guest endymion]

I found a video of the Molokai surfski marathon in Hawaii from this year that gives a pretty good sense of what it's like to ride six-foot swells. The kayaker in the video has to make time along a route so he can't afford to turn directly downwind or else he would be ripping along on a single swell at 16 MPH instead of a series of bumps at 9 MPH.

We had much cleaner 6-8 foot swells here off of South Beach a couple of weeks ago, perfect sine shapes with a glassy texture that I got moving downwind FAST on. The guy in this video does a beautiful carve at about 3:45 in the video that looks just like a typical morning on a surfski off of Miami Beach. Serious monster ride at about 6:35.

I had to hack a Google Video tag into the forums to post it, so now anybody can post clips from there now just like YouTube.

[gvideo]4541841166263871358[/gvideo]

The code to do it looks like this:

[center][gvideo]4541841166263871358[/gvideo][/center]

[all4tribal1414779019]

awesome videos bro

i found some trainer kites online that i might get soon enough http://www.kitemare.com/trainer%20kites.htm, there's also about 4-5 kite schools from west palm to miami that ive found that are certified and give you hands on experience, they usually cost about $150-$225 for a 2-3 hour session from beginners to intermediates to advanced each w/ 3 different training courses step by step w/ an instructor for instance http://www.eastcoastkiteboarding.com/lessons.html. they provide all the gear incase i dont have the gear by than...i was thinking about just starting off on my own, but than i wanted to learn from a pro, and meet people while doing it too.

looking forward to it

[Guest endymion]

You'll get a lot more for your training dollar if you get a trainer kite and learn to fly it on the beach and from the water with your eyes closed before you even call any school. Show up as an expert kite pilot and their job is very easy. It's all about the kite, and the kite is harder than you would expect.

If you're going to ride a 4-line traction kite, then you would want to make sure that you train with a 4-line trainer kite. A guy as big as you will need at least a 5 or 6 square meter training kite to get the correct amount of fear of nature inspired in you.

Beyond that, please don't break your neck. I would feel bad about it.

[Guest michael^heaven]

Kite surfing looks very challenging. There are a couple of guys up here that do it on windy days. One of 'em always gets his ass wiped!

[Guest endymion]

Kite surfing looks very challenging. There are a couple of guys up here that do it on windy days.

On windy days it's easy.

It's gusty days when it's super challenging. When it's blowing at 17 MPH one minute and then it drops to 5 MPH the next out of nowhere and you have to react with your kite to stay under control on the board. Traction kites are extremely powerful so if you power up for a lull and then a gust hits before you can de-power, then you get lofted in whatever direction the kite is pulling at the time. The biggest risk is hitting a fixed object when you get lofted.

We don't have very steady wind in South Florida, especially in summer, so superior kite piloting skills are critical here. Big guys should practice with big trainers that really will loft them a foot or two when they have it overpowered, or else the first that they ever experience that will be when it's life-threatening. If too many people get hurt then it kills off the sport, it's already prohibited on most beaches in South Florida because of the risks.

[Guest endymion]

Season here for kiting is winter.

We had steady 20 MPH wind in Miami today, might have more of that all week. 1-foot wake waves all the way across Biscayne Bay.

Awesome down-wind surfing this afternoon on a kayak. Might take a 3m trainer kite out on South Beach tomorrow.

Usually to get wind this good in Miami you have to freeze your ass off going outside in the winter. W00t.

[Guest jamu]

Those videos are sick