Excerpt from The Kiteboarder Magazine

How Far Do You Push Wear?

As appeared in the December issue of The Kiteboarder Magazine

By Brendan Richards / Caution Kites / SCkitesurfing.com

You can learn a lot about a kiter just by looking at his or her chicken loop. This being the one part of kite equipment that requires periodic maintenance, the condition of a rider’s main depower line can give you hints about the personality of the kiter. Is the trim line clean and tidy? A little rough around the edges? Completely haggard? Regardless of whether you weigh in as a fair-weather lightweight, a weekend warrior, or an everyday heavy, at some point you are going to have to cross that bridge: Tempt one more session or go straight to your local shop for a replacement.

If you enjoy a good self rescue every now and then, feel free to test the limits of line wear. However, if you don’t want or need the exercise of an unexpected swim, you’ll have to find the fine line between acceptable wear and pushing your luck.

How far you push it probably depends on some vague and unspeakable risk calculus, factoring in any of the following variables; cash in wallet, deficit of time, cost of kite repair, size of surf, degree of self motivation, and the perceived importance of the immediate session standing between you and a fresh chicken loop. When I was a student, short in terms of time, cash, and a sponsor, chicken loops were routinely ridden threadbare and almost always until broken. Even now, as a sponsored team rider where replacement chicken loops are in abundance, I still find myself on occasion riding trim loops resembling dental floss, and this is because after all these years, my guiding principle in chicken loop replacement is this quiet voice of reason in my head which is given absolutely no authority despite an almost perfect track record of predicting imminent trim loop failure. It doesn’t have to be that way, so I consulted a man much wiser than I, and here is the rule of thumb the great Peter Schiebel taught me:

It’s good to get in the habit of visually checking your trim loop each time you get in the water. If you see some fraying or irregular wear, then you should take your fingers and get a feel for the extent of wear. For the equipment hypochondriacs out there, getting fanatical about a minor amount of trim loop fraying is a waste of time, but when your minor fuzz turns into missing chunks, then it’s time for a trim line tune up. Squeeze the trim line between two fingers and move down the length of your trim loop to get a feel for areas where the Spectra has worn thin. When the gap becomes tangible and considerable between the worn and unworn areas, it’s time for some preventative maintenance. Of course, if you like swimming  surrounded by balls of kite line and a giant piece of fabric, then by all means see just how far you can push your luck.

It should be noted that despite his wise advice, Peter ended this fall’s first double overhead session with a depower line so thin that he was able to floss his teeth with it.

Brendan Richards rides for Caution Kites (http://www.cautionkites.com), runs Santa Cruz Kitesurfing (http://www.sckitesurfing.com), and generally likes to avoid long ocean swims. Check www.cautionkites.com/vid/trimloop for an instructional video on how to replace your chicken loop.

SUP KITING: Worth the Effort?

As appeared in the October issue of The Kiteboarder Magazine

By Brendan Richards / Caution Kites / SCkitesurfing.com

I gave up trying to be cool a long time ago, but my lack of coolness was firmly confirmed two years ago when I took an 11’ stand up paddleboard (SUP) out in 10 knots with a 6m kite. It was a complete failure. The only thing worse than the realization that I couldn’t make something seemingly simple work was that as a result of my stubbornness, I had to drag my kite and a monster board a quarter mile back up the beach in wind that was too lame to help me on the way down, but persistently spiteful on the way back up.

I had always considered myself at the higher end of the hierarchy of kitesurfing, one of the guys that could ride anything; a sheet of plywood or an inflatable dolphin (other things not cool), and do it with style. From that point on I vowed to warn anybody and everybody who floated the idea of kiting on a stand up paddleboard that it was by far the worst, most physical, and ridiculously pointless form of kiting.

Fast forward two years to this last spring when I had been demoted to Senior Vice President of Demo Operations for Caution Kiteboarding, which requires traveling with a truck full of kite gear and our new line of stand up paddleboards to demo events all over the west coast. Demos are typically held in locations that are known for wind, but that are almost guaranteed to have nothing more than an eight knot sea breeze because of some cosmic law that causes events to attract light wind conditions. Some people don’t mind demoing kites on the beach, but for me it’s about the water, so at some point my desperation combined with an abundance of stand up paddle boards led me to give SUKing (Stand Up Kiting) another try.

To make a short story longer – this time it worked. With 5-8 knots of wind I chose a 15M kite and one of our 10′ stand up boards. Our SUP boards are second generation style – wider and shorter with a hard edge in the tail for surfing. The steady pull of the larger kite combined with a better rail shape made it easy to put the board on edge for cruising upwind. The extra width helps you balance against the kite and unanticipated changes in wind strength and by experimenting with your feet and weight placement, you can get pretty efficient at cruising around in threshold wind conditions.

The novelty may wear off quick, so plan on trying a tail pivot jibe, duck tack, or going retro with old school windsurfer freestyle tricks.

A series of light wind demo events through this summer has given me more SUK sessions than I would prefer, but as I said, I gave up being cool a long time ago. Now I’ll settle for getting wet and being entertained, and on occasions that may involve SUKing.

TIPS:

• Start on your knees with the kite high in the window. Start with small power strokes. If you fall, aim for the water, and try not to skewer the board with your harness hook.
• SUP boards don’t come with a centerboard, so you have to sink the upwind rail in order to be able to track upwind. You will have to experiment with your board to find the optimal position.
• To turn the board you have to take a few steps back and sink the tail – a wider stance will help your feet push the board where you want it to go. You can rotate your legs, leveraging off the pull of your kite.
• In threshold wind conditions, where there’s just enough wind to keep the kite in the air, every knot helps. Make sure that you are either sinking the tail or one rail to fight against drifting with the wind.
• If you see a lull coming and you are worried about keeping the kite in the air, it’s best to keep the kite high in the window. Once the kite gets low and off to the side in marginal wind, it’s tough to bring it back up.

INSTRUCTIONAL: Unhooking in the Waves

As appeared in the September 2010 issue of The Kiteboarder Magazine

By Brendan Richards / Caution Kites / SCkitesurfing.com

The idea of unhooking in the waves and blasting down the line with just one hand hanging on to your bar can sound pretty overwhelming to riders that aren’t used to unhooking, but getting the pull of your kite away from the center of your body opens up a whole new school of waveriding and frees up your body to perform in ways that just are not possible when your harness is connected to your kite.

With a little practice, unhooking in the waves isn’t as difficult as people usually think it is. Because you are traveling downwind on the wave, there really isn’t a huge amount of pull coming from the kite. The most difficult part of riding a wave unhooked is not holding on with one hand, but timing the kite’s movements with the wave.

Learning to Unhook

Starting in flat water, practice unhooking and hooking back in. Make sure that you have good board speed and bear off downwind before you unhook, as this will take the shock out of transferring the pull from your harness to your upper body. Prior to unhooking, put both hands close together near the center of the bar. This allows you to take one hand off the bar while reducing the amount that the kite will turn when hanging on with one hand. The first time you unhook you will be shocked by how much more drag and resistance you feel from your board and the intensity of the pull from your kite. The more downwind you travel, the less the kite will pull.

When hooking back in, the key to success is using both hands to pull the bar back to your body while hooking in with one swift move. With both hands centered on the bar, pull the bar towards your harness hook. As your trim loop approaches the harness hook, leave one hand on the bar as close to the center as possible and grab the quick release/chicken loop with the other hand and guide it back onto your harness hook. When polished into one swift move, this seems to be the easiest, fastest, and most reliable method of hooking back in. Some riders choose to keep both hands on the bar and guide the trim loop back onto the harness hook, but success at this method depends upon the rigidity of your trim loop and your muscle coordination under strain.

When things go wrong, be prepared to let go of the bar and grab the chicken loop with both hands. If you are using a high depower kite this will kill almost all of the kite’s pull. Once things have calmed down, you can lie back in the water and bring your harness hook to the surface and then muscle the chicken loop back to your harness hook with both hands on the trim loop.

Unhooked Wave Riding

When riding waves unhooked, your goal is to ride down the line with only your forward hand on the bar for as much of the time as is possible. Because the kite turns when only one hand is on the bar, the challenge is to time your hand movements with where you want to place the kite, where the wave is, and how much power you need. To slow the movement of the kite, you can hold the bar so your index finger is on the other side of the bar with the depower line between your index and middle fingers.

On a right in side-onshore wind, it goes something like this: Going down the wave, unhook and turn the kite to the right (towards the wave) until letting go with your right hand. Through the bottom turn, only your left hand stays on the bar, causing the kite to slowly turn left (towards the beach). If your timing is right, then the left hand has redirected the kite to the left side of the window as you hit the lip of the wave. Put your right hand back on the bar for a moment to redirect the kite back again towards the wave as you start another bottom turn. This takes a lot of practice to get right, so don’t be frustrated if you don’t nail the timing on your first few tries.

Best Conditions for Unhooking: You need steady wind, relatively smooth water, the right kite size, and an appropriately tuned bar to have a good time in the waves unhooked. If the wind is gusty or the water is really choppy, you’ll probably have more fun staying hooked in.

PROS

• Changes the center of effort/pull coming from the kite making riding on a wave feel more like surfing where your upper body often dictates your direction of travel.
• Adds another challenge. Riding unhooked completely changes kiting in small waves, making it fun and exciting.
• Makes you a more well-rounded kiter and less apt to panic if you accidentally become unhooked.
• Makes some delusional egomaniacs feel really cool, even though they continue to be complete hacks in the waves (more of a CON).

CONS

• Riding unhooked sets your kite at a fixed level of power, eliminating the benefits of the latest in depower technology.
• Unhooking works really well in slightly underpowered conditions, but makes wind quality and kite selection much more important.
• Makes you more likely to yard sale in the lineup and burn your friends (and enemies) while you sort yourself out.
• In the beginning, unhooked wave riding tends to offer just a few moments of brilliance when everything lines up surrounded by horrendously mistimed moves and repeated train wrecks.

STRAPLESS KITING: Getting outside

As appeared in the August issue of The Kiteboarder Magazine

By Brendan Richards / Caution Kites / SCkitesurfing.com

Strapless riding is a great way to challenge yourself and have fun on even the flattest of days. One of the biggest challenges when riding strapless can be getting out past the waves. It’s common for experienced kitesurfers to forget how irritating the simple process of getting through the impact zone can be for new kiters. Few words can describe the frustration of being taken out by the first wave only to be cleaned out and sent back to the beach by subsequent waves, a scenario exponentially irritating for the experienced kiter venturing into strapless territory for the first time.

The obvious drawback to strapless kiting is your inability to air out and jump clear over sets, and as a result you are left with two options; turn around and run away with a chicken jibe, or hit the wave directly by climbing up and over the whitewater. Here are some helpful hints to help you face off and take each set head on.

FOR STARTERS

Pick a day with small waves and good wind, go through the motions on small waves, and figure out what works best for you, then scale it up to bigger waves. Most injuries and broken boards occur from trying to hit the wave when the lip is throwing. The timing of the wave may be unpredictable and being in the wrong place at the wrong time can be like hitting a brick wall.

STRATEGY

The first element of getting past the impact zone is timing. You should size up each wave well in advance of contact with the whitewater. In the event the wave has not yet broken, (step 1) determine if you can speed up and make it up and over the clean face. If the wave is close to throwing, (step 3) you should slow down because hitting the wave right as it is breaking is much more dangerous because the lip is throwing down on top of you and the energy of the wave is at its peak.

If the wave has broken (steps 6+), you might consider slowing down so as to allow the wave to shed some of its energy and turbulence, making for a much more easier ramp to climb over. As the surf gets larger, timing becomes increasingly important and having a confident chicken gibe in your back pocket is a good idea as well.

TECHNIQUE

As you approach the wave you should scrub some speed. A frequent first-time mistake is bearing off or hitting the wave straight on with speed. This adds uncertainty as you bounce off the whitewater with an unanticipated trajectory and generally causes instantaneous separation from your board for new strapless riders. The best technique is to slow down by applying back foot pressure and heading the board a few degrees into the wind (step 3).

The kite should be roughly positioned at 45° in the window during the approach and by the time you make contact with the wave the kite should be almost directly overhead. As you begin to climb over the whitewater you should have scrubbed most of your forward speed so that the wave is almost rolling underneath you, with the overhead pull of your kite making the upward transition a little smoother (step 5). By applying more pressure to your rear foot you can help the tip of the board ride up over the whitewater and allow the wave to roll under you.

You want to engage the wave (step 6) with your legs fully extended, allowing your legs to suck up or absorb the energy and turbulence of the wave. Without straps, you have to use your knees, the force of the wave, and just the right amount of kite power to get you and your board through to the back side of the wave. The larger the wave, the more challenging it can be to absorb the turbulence of the wave and maintain the connection between you and your board.

As you reach the top of the wave (step 9) you want to start thinking about shifting your weight to your front foot and using your forward hand to initiate a downward power stroke. At this point you have very little forward momentum because you ditched most of your speed in your approach and lost whatever forward movement was left to the wave. You will want to weight your forward foot, point your board downwind and power up your kite to get back up to speed and get ready to size up the next wave.

Tips:

• If you find yourself down in the water with your board between you and the wave, use your kite to get away from your board.
• If you are in trouble, point your kite in the direction that the wave is coming from. This will pull you through the wave and keep the kite in the sky.
• When getting out, you want to go as slow as you can without sinking your board. This gives you the most control as you hit the wave and minimizes the impact on your knees and legs.

Brendan Richards rides for Caution Kiteboarding.