Went kiting at Kurnell on Saturday morning with a forecast of 15-20knots westerly. Pumped up the 12m, got out and was ok, kite was on full depower, however lost my board and was battling to go back up wind. All of a sudden with bar all the way out and on full depower got lofted not once but a good 3-4 times and could not control it... was quite scary and thank goodness i was no where near the groynes.

I looked at the seabreeze forecast after I got back to shore and saw that the wind was up and down with gusts going between 15-30knots.

In this instance is it better to do the following:

Go out with a much smaller kite (9m, as I weigh 80kg) or watch and see if the wind settles as it did the for the afternoon it remained consistent from the Seabreeze report?

There was only one other kiter out at the time and he was on a 7m which I didnt know at the time that his kite was so small.

Whats the go with Westerlies?

Happened to me one day those westerly boosts. A bloke told me that it had something to do with the land heated wind hitting the cold water and rising fast like a thermal. He even had a name for em, called em thurbos.
Dunno the science behind it but it sounds about right.
I dont kite westerlies, the wind is always shart....
oi...

Don't kite in sydney westerlies unless you are willing to accept worst case scenarios all on your own

Hope the guy that flew his kite on the northern beaches today, in the unpredictable off sore winds!!!! READS THIS TOPIC. I tried to give some advice ,(It"s ok mate im not going in the water).

We get a heap of westerlies here and the island 5 miles offshore makes it gusty as hell,the wind comes over the top in waves and can be 12-45 some days with waterspouts all over ,the rule round here is small kite big board, the big board gets you through the lulls so you get a decent ride ,i use a 6.5 and a cardboards 148 wave when its real gusty and manage to ride through the lulls no problem.If we flagged westerlies we would kill our riding by about a third,gusty days make you a better rider IMO really hones the riding skills.

Yep we get some westerlies here in WA once in a while in summer