What the Fark, i live in Scarb and love nothing more then ambling down to my local beach for a kite whenever the wind is in. Banning kites , where will it stop? Windsurfing, surfing bodyboarding....all powered craft of some description. visionless powereheads

Actually I'm not surprised. I don't kite there but like to take my family for a walk before I get the choc cake at barchetta's or blue duck now and then and the scenes I've seen there made me 1. not wanna kite there and 2. wonder just when somethings gonna happen there. This monday I saw a young bloke trying to have what must have been his mother launch his kite, she didn't have any idea which way to hold it while he was about to walk the lines across a family with a toddler in a tent. (now where's the bullet-in-the-head-smiley for that). Some other guy showed off doing his turn-jump-whatcha-call-it
always within 5m off the shore.

Yep, sure looks we are digging our own grave.... I've been thinking about it and I reckon the problem at Cott is that the phone Box site is VERY public, with alot of passing walkers and trafic, and old time beach users who as kiters we are starting to piss off. I don't think we as a kiting group can regulate kiters or each other at all.

I reckon we should stop using phone box and that car park all together, and kite 70m south closer to the windsurfers. The spot has poor public access/few swimmers/few baech walkers and has a larger beach area for **** ups. Also it is probably a better kite spot as it is deeper on the inside. I reckon every one has to stay 30m off the beach with no pumping up kites on grassed areas , only beach.

What do people think? Any other ideas.

Jonathan

Carl, a Farking damn shame....

I'm from Melbourne so I'm not familiar with your local spots over there but its bad news and we face the same issues over here. Do you think it's possible for your most representative body to approach the council and say something like 'Ok, we have rules which are at times flouted by some but if your going to video people, instead of penalising everyone how about adequate signage & writing them an on the spot fine?' Wouldn't this be a fair first stategy rather than straight into the heavy handed approach

A funny thought, I amazed at the anti WAKSA line in some posts, as though WAKSA isn't helping keep our kite spot. WAKSA is only a group of kiters who put in a spare time to help the image of kiting etc. They are not out there Farking up or kiting spots. Every one who is kiting at Cott and not staying 30m off shore , not staying 30m from Joe public, walking into old ladies on the foot path with pumped up kites, is Farking it up, and thats about 99% of us, including myself. It was amazing the other day when the council guy was filming everyone, kiters were walking past him at the top of the stairs with pumped up kites and into people walking by, infact an old lady had to bend onto the ground as a kite was walked over her head.

First I just want to say WAKSA is great and I support it. I know most of WAKSA is just recreational kiters who want to protect their beaches and would volunteer for anything and do anything to help. And John Geyer is a great choice for president and I dont envy his job. So well done to all those guys.

And it is probably best that the president and treasurer and committmee members own kite shops or schools as they have more to lose if kiteing is banned and so should be even keener then the rest of us to protect the sport.

However, a couple of questions must be going through everyones mind so i hope i dont get slammed here...


1. If the WAKSA has been in regular contact with councils etc, then why is the first we have heard of this banning been from a kiter who happened to be walking past a council worker who told him? Either council isnt telling WAKSA their intentions, or WAKSA dont talk to them often. Is there another explanation as to why WAKSA didnt know, or didnt tell anyone? I would have thought in one of their "regular"meetings, council might have said " By the way, we are banning kiteing at cottesloe".

2. These flyers and signs have been a "gunna do" for quite a while. I think I first heard it well over a year ago, maybe 2 years ago. Is it just talk or is it actually going to happen? It needs to happen soon - the signs at least. It looks like council may be going to beat us to the erection of signs for kiters - ie BANNED!


We have to face it - anyone can buy a kite anywhere and use it. It cant be regulated by WAKSA or anyone - the best we can do is make suggestions and negotiate. Tourists are here by the truck load in summer.

If WAKSA are talking to council they need to show they have done something, anything?

Make a compromise. Maybe for example, give inspectors the power to warn kiters if they are kiteing or settign up too close to the public in a designated kite free area. Just as surfers are warned if they surf between the flags to move outside the flags. If the person does not clear to a lesss populated area, then they have the power to fine.

Personally i dont blame council for banning it in some areas. Why shuld people who come to lie on the beach have to keep watching out for kites that are set up around them and fly over thier heads? Just as long as the inspectors can use their judgement to keep the beaches safe and dont fine kiters on an almost empty beach because its banned.

Back in January at the WAKSA meeting at least 30% of the people there kited at Cottlesloe. At that same meeting it was agreed that as kiters we should stay 30m from the shore and not launch or land within 30m from other beach users/objects.

We now hear that 99% of the kiters at Cottlesloe are deliberately ignoring these guidelines; it just makes a mockery of the whole self-regulating idea. is it any wonder that we are now looking at a ban?

It's about time people started taking responsibility for their actions and showing a bit of respect.

tick-tock - time is running out guys, either sort it out yourselves or be sorted!

If kiting does get banned at Cottlesloe then I hope that the people who kite there don't start coming to some of the other relatively trouble free spots in Perth and show the same total lack of respect they have for other kiters, members of the public and the environment!

Whilst we are waiting for official WAKSA signs to go up at spots why not produce a flyer alerting people to the fact that they are now being videoed and that a ban is immanent unless people change their attitude. Either hand this out to all the kiters at the phone box or stick it in their kite bags or on their car windscreens.

IMHO I believe that once one council bans kiting, the others will follow suit regardless of whether there are problems on their beaches or not.

Kitesurfing an EXTREME sport ..... b*llox.......Kitesurfing an EXTINCT sport!

G'day Jonathan,

We have a committee meeting tomorrow (Tue 4 May) night 7pm @ Airborne 160 SBR.

The Cott & Scarb issues will be discussed, in particular we hope to finalise the signage and flyer guidance - had hoped that this would have been done last meeting but we wanted a bit more time to think about the exact wording.

You and any local working group members are always welcome at any WAKSA meetings

You may have already read my response on seabreeze - bottom line is apart from the signs, etc if people don't start playing the game we will get banned IMO.

I spoke with Neil Farrage, Senior Ranger with the City of Cottesloe this morning and he confirmed that he is writing a brief to his manager and his personal view is that kite surfing should be banned from Cottesloe. The main issues he raised were:
injuries to general public that have already occurred
kites being flown low over the beach ie lines at risk of injuring people
kiters coming in too close to the beach and too fast
kiters continuing to ignoring the signs and walk down from the phone box over the dunes
public liability
self-regulation not working in his opinion
I pleaded with Neil to consider that kite surfing is a very young sport and requested that he engage WAKSA and the Cottesloe working group to resolve issues and give self-regulation another chance. I undertook to email him and will cc you.

I have also recently spoken with John Snook, Chief Beach Inspector with the City of Stirling and he is happy with the way kite surfing is going at Scarborough at the moment and confirmed that there is no move to ban us anywhere in Stirling nor is he aware of any significant complaints. He agreed that it would be better if kiters moved to Contacio but he would not force this issue - he did say that a new camera is to be installed in the next few weeks that will cover the Northern carparks which may deter car theft (one of the main reasons why people prefer Brighton)

Cheers,
Ian Young

Not sure whether this kind of idea could be managed properly, but hopefuly it might start a few more discussions.

Jonathan says that the majority of problems seem to be caused by beginners/euros/eastern states kiters.

Is there anyway that a deal can be done with the rangers in that only WAKSA members are allowed to kite at the phone box and proof of membership must be shown upon request?

As a member of WAKSA people have agreed to abide by the WAKSA rules/guidelines, if they are seen to not be doing that then they would have their membership cancelled. This means that they would then not be able to kite at the phone box.

The pros for the rangers would be that everyone who is kiting will have insurance, they will also have agreed to certain rules/guidelines and they stand the risk of losing that privilge if they break the rules.

One of the problems with this idea is it's pretty easy to fake a WAKSA membership card, but I'm sure something can be done whereby the rangers can cross-check a WAKSA membership with some other personal details to try and stop bogus members using the area.

I've never kited at Cottlesloe so don't really know what it's like, but it is obviously a very exciting spot for a lot of people and it would be a shame that it is taken away because a few people can't tow the line.

Anyway food for thought.

What about when your car gets broken into and your wallet AND WAKSA card get stolen? No kiting for 2 months while you wait for a new one? I don't think so!

Why don't we all get a bar code engraved on our forehead and then the rangers can scan us and have a link up to the main data base. If your not paid up they can confiscate your gear and throw you in the cooler for a while.

The bottom line is, even if all kiters were members and they all showed up at a council meeting they still would only be a very small precentage of the other beach users much less rate payers that elect the council. The council will make it's ruling based on the behavior of the kiters on the water and beaches ect. From what I see everyday there is wind, I think it might be time to start thinking about driving a long way to go kiting!

And for what it's worth i've been a member of AKSA since i started kiting. Not that I have any real confidence in the insurance, which seems to be the only real reason to join. Has it ever been tested? What would really happen if a claim was made? Have they even paid the premium? It took 9 months to get my first membership card. And I think I saw somewhere that the AKSA committee had a mass walk out. So how organised is it all????