May 2001

Newsletter, May '01.

Just in case anyone ever reads this, yes it's late- I've been away kitefestivalling.

Italy and San Francisco this time, good fun too. 

Mr and Mrs Bagno, the gracious hosts of the restaurant nearest to the part of the beach we were flying on at Cervia have now reserved their corner table for us in perpetuity during the Cervia festival in recognition of our record setting lunches-I thought they said 2 litres of wine per person per lunch average for 12 days- but this must have been some misunderstanding.  Maybe they were referring to the year before when younger members of our family were attending in my stead.  Or maybe they had confused our lot with Team "No Limits" from Germany.  Or, just a sudden thought, maybe "Frizzante" is a type of wine rather than the sparkling mineral water which we thought we were ordering- and this would explain a few other things also.

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I occasionally rant on about those who take the path of less resistance in product development by copying and developing from proven designs rather than blundering about looking for breakthroughs- not that innovation needs be completely happenchance, not since the systematisation of the experimental process anyway. 

Well, before someone calls me out for hypocrisy I confess that not all the development work we do here is of the fundamental type, the incremental approach is important also, and to an increasing extent as kiteflying activities mature. 

The motor car was already in recognizable form nearly 100 years ago with, typically, four wheels, front wheel steering, and an internal combustion engine at the front.  The comparatively highly refined car of '01 has come from this starting point by continual improvement rather than any fundamental breakthrough. 

What will kites, single line and multi line, look like in another 100 years?  Will they be recognisable developments of forms that exist now or will the explosive rate of change of the last 40 years continue for a while yet? 

Of course it is difficult to see what fundamentally different forms are as yet undiscovered- but this is always true or else they would already exist! 

I'll bet there are some though, but in a finite world each new style discovered subtracts one from the undiscovered side of the ledger- hence our current research and development trend towards putting more resources into incremental change rather than searching for the shatteringly different. 

Taxonomically there don't seem to be many categories remaining for which examples don't already exist- from completely frameless single skin (eg the NASA wing type) thru ram air to partially framed to fully framed, with side orders of all the possible hybrids and cellular kites merging thru chinese dragons to trains of individual kites.

For sure there are huge gains in performance to come- as already presaged by the improvements in the bladder style kitesurfing kites in just the last two or three years.

Personally it's the big ideas I live for though, economically rational or not.  The breakthrough stuff is riskier, that is requires generally greater testicularity than staying with proven approaches- but it's the stuff of life!  Bring on the viagra!.

And now for this month's nearly completely irrelevant bit of information- the father of experimental method (and hence of systematic innovation) is generally regarded as having been the 13th century's Robert Grossteste.  Interesting name, wouldn't be surprised if some of his descendants are into kites.

New things from here?  There is one, a big one actually that has come to fruition over many months- but sorry, no time to talk about it, too busy trying to meet current orders -and shopping for more comfortable trousers.

Some sad news;

Peter Lynn Ltd kitemaker, Robert (Snow) Lowe, died suddenly (result of a car accident) on the 5th May, just 25 years old.

Snow first worked here in 1998  and has been on our full time staff making traction and single line kites since November last year.  The first large single line kite that was entirely his own work was the Trilobite I was flying by San Francisco's Golden gate bridge when I first heard of his tragic death.  It is the finest large kite I have ever flown- and I had just sent a congratulatory fax to this effect.  We will miss his quiet humor and presence, we will miss his exceptional skills, and we deeply regret the promise unfulfilled.

From all of us here, our sincere condolences go out to Snow's family and many friends.

He is sadly missed

Peter Lynn,  Ashburton New Zealand, May 12 '01