I was out in some pretty serious wind the other day and my kite sent me two jolts of static electricity into my arm. I thought it must be my imagination but i spoke to others who had the same thing.

I was riding in a storm, so i presume picking up it's charge from the storm; Anyone know if a kite can generate static on a clear day?

I was at Rye near Rosebud. 30knt northerlies for an hour or so then it switched to southerlies.

Static electrictity is generated by your kite moving through air filled with tiny water droplets. Generally while you're in contact with the water, it's continuously discharging so you don't notice it. If you jump, you can draw a good sized spark as you come near the water again. If your bar is fairly dry, the kite can charge up and you can get a shock touching the lines or the end or centre of the bar. I've had good sized sparks on a sea-misty afternoon without a cloud in the sky. It's not a sign of lightning hovering above you - lightning takes less than a second to ionise a path from clouds to ground before a discharge.

Having said that, the conditions for getting static sparks normally happens in stormy weather as the mechanism is the same, and all the info in the nswkba link is correct as far as I can see. Lighning does strike in advance of storm clouds, and lots of people get hit by lightning even without holding on to a kite!

yep... i've got a boat and when the wind is dry and i need to put a reef in the main, shocking, even with no storm activity