Sunday 12th January

[ekim]

Well, what an afternoon! Arrived to find Gareth standing by his car having shredded a spar in his Psycho. The wind was fairly strong so coffee and chat was in order. Peter arrived and with the wind lessening a little we decided to give some kites an airing. Peter launched his smiley and I gave my opera mask delta a go. Gareth launched a box but they all struggled as the wind gusts were just a bit to much. Eventually MartinG arrived after a tour of the local car parks (its a long story but to cut it short Peter needs to check his postcodes) anyway a large stripy delta joined us in the sky pulling Martin hard towards the sea. Quick break for sandwiches & coffee and got out my seldom flown Vertical Visuals kite (dont know it's name) but it flew ok despite the heavy gusts. Martin's delta decided to run away and headed seawards and I'm afraid all that could be done was to watch it slowly sinking into a falling tide. A somewhat despondant Martin trudged slowly up the beach and with Peter's help ended up having fun with a tiny twinline foil which left him with a big smile on his face. In the meantime Gareth had trudged out ont to the ever increasing sand and found a large delta lying in the shallows waiting to be collected! And so a wonderful day ended with big smiles all round, kites in the air (Peter's Smiley, Gareths ribbin box, my blue and yellow flowtail abd Martin's delta) in a fairly acceptable wind just before we all called it a day and left for home.

What started out feeling like a non kite day ended up as an ok afternoon.

Mike

[marting]

Brilliant write-up Mike, and certainly for me a very interesting afternoon! Special thanks to Gareth for retrieving my delta that decided to fly itself out to sea after a strong gust of wind yanked it out of my hands. 2 lessons learnt today.1- when flying in gusty conditions,hold the line securely & 2-use a halo, they are far safer than the winder I was using (although Peter did warn me about this on more than 1 occasion!)