Hey Peeps,

Today I managed to realise a great desire. To do a downwinder and then kite all the way back upwind again.

Wind was 12-15 knots WNW and I took off from Scarborough and blasted back and forth for a bit before riding upwind to Trigg, a quick turn around and blast back to Brighton, then onwards to South Cottesloe (Dutchies), a quick chat with some friends I hadn't seen for a while and then the daunting upwinder back to Brighton.

Wasn't so daunting actually, made it in 4 tacks and enjoyed watching the scenery blasting by. Of course riding on the racing gear and the 17m Zephyr, awesome fun and well powered almost all the time. Cranking upwind like a sailboat and being the only one in Perth having a sweet 2 hour powered session.

I can barely walk now of course, but hey, I'm chalking it up to training for racing

Cheers,

KH

hey kitehard u inspired me to do a upwinder 2day over in qld[D] i went to curramundi lake trying to find some1 for a downwinder then decided stuff it ill see how far upwind i can go.
wind was about 13 knots and i used the zephyr 17m to tack 9km upwind from curramundi lake to s-bends kawana. landed my kite, had a drink and scabbed some sunscreen of some oldlove then did a downwinder back to curramundi tryed some old school stuff on the downwinder because the hangtime on the zephyr is so dam crazy. been haveing fun just launching off waves and seeing how many frountrolls i can get in, managed to land a few quad frount rolls (stoked)

Nothing better than the ol' upwinder

Hey guys,

Love doing that kind of thing too (in either light or stronger winds), it's much more rewarding than a straight downwinder, I love to be able to go adventuring freely without relying on any logistics (unless things turn very bad!), and the satisfaction of accomplishing distance just with the power of wind (and legs) is great.

Yesterday I did Longreef to Manly and back, took me about 2 hours on a 10m kite and a standard twin type, great fun, beautiful scenari, met a penguin on the way too ahah, just missing some mates to join me, hopefully next time! If anyone is interested, let us know, would be more fun and safer!

Jacques

Upwinder???? Starting to sound like the oceanic equivalent of ski touring....