Heres an analogy...15 years ago hangliding ruled the "extreme" skysports scene, the hills were ours with sites carefully negotiated with landowners. Then someone invented the paraglider..slow, crap performance, but light and easy to learn to fly (and to get into a world of trouble) "Never catch on" we said. But within a few years our precious sites were crawling with posers showing off to boy/girlfriends how cool and brave they were, with NO idea about rules of the air, thermalling etiquette, or other users flying fast rigid craft not floppy slow craft..sound familiar? Collisions were common (results tended to be more serious than with kites/windsurfers) and more than a few altercations occurred. But as is the way of things, the posers got bored, the stupid got killed and the pilots who flew for the love of it carried on, everything settled down and we all learnt to share the air and enjoy the challenge of free flight together. Kite surfing /windsurfing is still in the first stage..

I am going over to the kite forum - at least they discuss important issues like guys with oars at Woodies - now there are some fella who know how to take their sport seriously. They do not have time to talk about windsurfers!

Radmac