April 2001

Newsletter, April '01

This month's totally useless bit of information:  It is estimated that in 1837, on any given night of the week, 25% of the residents of Vienna were out dancing.  Wow, the so called vertical expression of horizontal desire had it's boom times! 

Like most cultural development the waltz seems to have been sparked by a technological breakthrough.  Mechanical sawmilling was the underlying innovation, parquet flooring the specific cause, allowing dancer's to slide their feet around, apparently not possible on the rougher floors in use before then. 

What's this to do with kites?, well not a lot, but it had me thinking of some parallels:  The current boom in kite boarding also has an underlying technological development, in this case the rise of chemical engineering from the early 19th century that eventually gave us specific materials such as carbon, epoxies, polyurethane, nylon, polyester and Spectra/Dyneema, without which modern kites would not exist.  But kiteboarding is more about young male dreams of flying and fears of falling, a solitary activity not often directly involving the opposite sex, if you get my drift.  And here's the parallel, if kiteboarding is ever to thrive past this first wild boom, we have to find a way to involve women other than as dutiful girlfriends, beach bunnies and page three girls in kiteboard magazines.  It's not going to be easy, upper bodies are the problem, upper body strength, the lack of, that is.  Brute male strength makes it easier to get through the learning period of kiteboarding until finesse and skill can take over.  This and the attraction young males feel for wild violent things makes the ratio of males to females in active kiteboarding about 100 to 1 currently, with buggying not much better.  Girlfriends soon get more important priorities, like being mothers for example, so if kiteboarding is ever to have more than a brief hold on it's participants we must find a way to make it a more family activity or further boost the divorce rate that is.  Hopeless?

And, an organisational thing- we are separating our NZ manufacturing and distribution functions from research and development.  When the changeover is completed, Peter Lynn Ltd will have manufacturing, distribution and customer service as its clear focus with research and development moving over to a different company under the same umbrella.  Peter Lynn Ltd is moving to new (well, re-built) bigger premises at a nearby location with some staff additions to replace the 3 or 4 who are going with r and d.

And an Arc optional retro-fit.  We have found that all Arcs are improved by adding small flares to the wingtips.  These are suitably reinforced 90degree isosceles triangles of fabric, with their longest edge equal to the kite's tip dimension.  See attached photo.  The Arc's front line attachment points remain the same and the brake lines are attached to the flare tips.  Steering is improved, "feel" is improved and overall performance is generally better.

Why don't we fit these as standard?,  We will eventually but until they have had hard flying by many different users in a variety of locations it is impossible for us to be sure that there won't be some unexpected problem.  Many years of kite making has made us justifiably paranoid about this!   No problems yet though and we've had some in use for 3 months now, so by the end of this season the reliability verdict should be in.  Until then, there seems to be no reason not to explain what they are and how they work for any users who want to try.

And, and, two more new things, see attached photo's: 

*We now have a 16sq.m pilot kites in addition to the 4sq.m and 8sq.m sizes. The 16 sq.m have a new feature which we'll probably add to the smaller sizes now also; closing flaps on the front openings to make launching easier and collapsing even less likely.

*"Sand blanket" kite anchors for use on beaches. 0.85m x 1.4m reinforced trampoline material rectangles that are the best thing we've ever seen for big kite beach anchors.  They're easy to bury, easy to retrieve, light to carry and each one, when suitably buried, will hold one of our large kites even in wind we shouldn't be flying in.  Being porous they don't hold water so won't float up when the tide comes up underneath  We stole this idea from Australia but seeing as they have been known to steal things from NZ- like Phar Lap, Pavlova and Russel Crowe just to mention a few such- we don't feel too guilty. Thankyou Queensland.Kitefliers.

My holiday's over, nine international kite festivals in the next 5 months, so I really mean it this time when I say:

See ya!

Peter Lynn, Ashburton, 25 March '01.