It appears to me that the most fun thing about kiteboarding would have to be the "air time" BUT as soon as you take off and loose that lateral resistance, you eventually come down. how bout this : If you dragged somekind of drogue (this could be a milk crate or purpose built device) on the end of a line through the water, would this not maintain the resistance and thereby facilitate staying up as long as you want ???

It doesn't stop there Richie.

I once built a kite, which had a large (air) drogue attached to the bottom of the line. The theory is that it works on wind shear -- the wind is faster the higher up you go.

So you let it go, and the thing will pull itself up by its shoelaces until it hits the stratosphere...

When I flew mine, it was rising gradually (about one metre up for every twenty metres distance flown) but the football field I used as a runway had some large trees right at the end of it, and the drogue got caught at the top of one of those trees. I've always wanted to try it with a decent offshore wind at the coast though.

Mmmmmmm Darwin awards [}:)]

Years ago (about 30 years) I read about a bloke who had an idea that you could travel about suspended from a kite dragging a drogue (dirigible) in the water. As long as the wind blew it worked.

i say get someone to winch you up strapped to a 20sq.mtr. kite in 20kts. and hold down the bar that sure will get you airtime for a long time

decrepit said...

There's a story from corros that a kite bar got entangled in a craypot float. Thing flew itself down the coast out of site, craypot bouncing along behind.

It must have been a C kite [}:)]

Hey, don't forget about poleys.
What about setting up a bunch of big arse fans along the edge of a huge pool or sumting. Could even chuck some kicker ramps in as well for launching some rad jumps off.
Would be great cause you could polesurf even when the wind was below 40 knots.


Damn this poley v t bagger s h i t

Yeh Mike I know, was typing with tounge in cheek a little bit.
Was working for Jay and Richard at Windrush back in those glory days.
Go the Storm 8 and 10