Woohoo! First Seabreeze post!

A month after my last lesson, I was FINALLY able to just hold my line upwind for a couple of tacks yesterday (Sunday) at St. Kilda. Up until now, I was struggling with a bunch of lighter wind days and generally lacking experience.

I was able to borrow a huge board yesterday (154-ish) which finally allowed me to plane long enough to learn how to move the kite faster and more effectively. (aside: holy s*** was that ever awesome! What a cool fantastic sport!) I understand that with a board that big, heading upwind is a little more difficult as it has too much edge to be able to push into the water.

The some key things that I learned yesterday were that I was previously not getting enough planing speed (oh, THAT's how fast I was supposed to be going!), not moving the kite fast enough, not moving the kite up high enough, not pointing downwind enough, had my hands too far apart and was oversheeting the kite.

My question is whether my 138 board is too small (I'm ~84kg, 188cm) or what I can do to compensate for that. I know that I likely need a bit more wind (I have a 12.5), but how else can I help myself to get enough planing speed to be able to cut upwind (not just across the wind).

Thanks!

RC

138's perfect for your weight.
Definitely need more wind.

It's kinda a balancing act when your first starting out as too much wind will be dangerous and terrifying, whilst too little is just frustrating. With more experience and practice you'll learn to get going in lighter winds, but for the time being your going to need a minimum of 16-17kn to compensate for your inexperience.

An experience 85kg rider on your equipment would probably be able to hold ground at ~15kn.

That was no board....that was an AIRCRAFT CARRIER!!
After longingly gazing out to sea for 2 hours, it ended up being a good session on Sunday arvo - patience paid off and I think we both progressed... Cheers and see you in the soup again some time.