07 September, 2008

Mykonos - Pearly's Downwind

Lovely conditions, wind probably 25kts North Westerly. 4 of us were dropped off at Mykonos, luckily no big swell. I was a little apprehensive as this was the 1st time that I would attempt this run although we really tried to organize this quite a few times before.

Feels quite safe going with the likes of Hennie, Christian and Darren on the water. Darren had quite an spectacular launch with his chicken finger braking and then he was fully unhooked and a few meters up in the air quite quickly. This was the result of some gusting winds at the launch area.

Good idea to have these things checked it seems.

Anyhow, I managed to stay in my position in the wind quite easily, was more a problem moving downwind as I picked up speed quite quickly and the board became quite skittish. I was initially fully powered up on my adjuster. Then I started experimenting with settings on it, initially depowering too much but playing with these a little soon had me under control.

Out in the bay the wind picked up a bit and the waves were quite big, I found that I had to absorb the shock with bending of legs. The wind was also dropping off a little closer to the shore so I opted to stay about 500m or more from shore, here however the waves were bigger. Catch 22.

My kite flew quite naturally quite down low, about 1-2 meters of the water, this however made the kite pull me forward over the board. I eventually fixed this by positioning my forward hand closer to the center of the bar than the back hand. This made that when I pulled on the bar my back hand would be pulling a little bit more than the front and the kite would fly up a little. Seemed to work, will report back on this aspect.

I still can not get the turning thing done but the attempts are getting better.

Well, off to warm waters of Tanzania in 2 days time.

No comments: