Kite Boarding History to 2005
In 1987 I was sort of looking for a new challenge, but something still to do with kites.
Elwyn (wife) and I started making kites commercially in 1971. Initially we made kites for kids, locally in Ashburton at first then gradually extending to NZ wide, Australia, USA and Europe by the mid '80's- and with larger and larger kites. We gradually developed a market for large (typically 30 sq.m or so) single line kites with various "theme" shapes at NZ$5000 or so each. Business was good- and still is in this sector, which we have kept a strong grip on. .But, it was also getting to be a bit boring.
While in the US in '87, a friend (John Waters) convinced me to explore the potential of kite traction- that is, sports using kites as sails. I bought glass, resin and surfboard blanks on the way home to Ashburton from the airport and was kite sailing (boats) and kite-waterskiing at Lake Clearwater (an Alpine Lake in the South Island of New Zealand) within weeks, using a sky diving parafoil converted to fly as a two-line kite. I even tried to wobble along on a board- totally convincing myself and everyone watching that kiteboarding would never be possible!
The kite boats worked quite well almost immediately- and kite water skiing was also fairly easy- though getting back up-wind on the ski(s) was only rarely possible in those days. There is a photo of Pete, then aged 14, water skiing with just a single 1.0sq.m stunt kite in a nor'wester. We were called the "clowns of clearwater", not in a friendly way either. The windsurfers there were often abusive, and even more convinced than us by the long swims and persistent lack of success, that kiteboarding would never work.
I developed the first buggy as a spin-off from kite sailing in 1990, and buggying took off as a sport worldwide within a few years, but kite sailing was and still is my objective. Buggy business provided us with the income to keep pushing away at kitesailing and later kiteboarding developments.
In the early '90s there was a kite sailing meeting in Italy for some of the pioneers and I met with Bruno and Dominique Legaignoux for the first time and tried their kite and boats. They were also unconvinced of the future of kiteboarding, but their kite was very interesting- at that time it had a very different rigging system- hollow main lines with steering lines threaded up through them to effect some control. It steered the wrong way and I recall Bruno saying "you're not supposed to do that" when one of us there managed to loop it.
I'd also met Corey Roeseler, he came to Lake Clearwater with his "KiteSki" system in the early '90s and very much impressed us with his speed, control and, especially, upwind performance.
The challenge for me from this time on was to try to find a kite design for kite sailing that did not infringe either Bruno's or Corey's ideas. Actually, it was Corey's system that looked to have the lead then, by far. The early tube kites were fairly hopeless.
By about 1996 and 1997, a few people like Manu Bertone (uncertain of the correct spelling) were able to stay on boards for short runs. Even more incredibly, he didn't use foot straps at all. But it was still not clear that kiteboarding would ever be possible for other than a small elite group.
By 1998 I was certain kiteboarding would go but had still failed to come up with a viable alternative kite- not for lack of trying either.
The C Quad was one of these 'last ditch' attempts. It worked, but not as expected. Intending to use shaped pieces of polyethylene foam as the structure, I substituted light fibreglass rod as temporary stiffeners in prototypes to save some of the laborious foam shaping. With the fibreglass, it became a very good buggy kite, so we went with this.
Tube kites were starting to show some potential but were still not generally available. C Quads were what we had then, so we also used them for kitesurfing. Quite a few of the 1998/99 wave of NZ kitesurfers started on C Quads. Kane (Hartill) was always an excellent flier (he and our son Pete had been friends and kite testers for us since an early age), but I can remember trying to get Cindy Mosey (now woman's world champion) going at Nelson and she was such a hopelessly insensitive kite flier to start with, I honestly thought she'd never be able to learn- Oh well, not the first time I've got it wrong- nor the last, no doubt.
Then, just when I was convinced that there was no alternative to the tube kite form, the Arc, our bridleless ram air kite flew for the first time. Knowing it would take a year or more to get a saleable version developed, we then quickly designed a bridled foil- the "Waterfoil" to hold the market open for us for that year. It was successful at this - and commercially.
There was very little time to spare as tube kites were developing at a fast pace by then and we knew that if we didn't get something useable onto the market very quickly, the opportunity to ever do so would be lost. Not having time to test over an extended period or in widely different places- hot/cold, dry/humid and etc- as a precaution, I designed the first-generation Arcs very conservatively, with the emphasis on stability rather than performance or de-power. They sold surprisingly well right from the start and had almost no fundamental problems, - or at least no more than tube kites of the same era, much to my relief.
We were still in the catch-up game though. Bruno had a 17year head start, which, fortunately for us, had largely been squandered for various reasons, or the door would already have been firmly shut. With such intense time pressure, basic models had to come first, but it was clear that the market was soon going to be demanding higher performance kites. Pushing a fundamentally different concept into a market dominated by tube kites, for general credibility we needed to at least give users a glimpse of the Arc's potential. To do this we decided to see just how far we could push lift to drag ratio (that is, aerodynamic efficiency) if we didn't compromise too much for de-power, water re-launch or turning speed. The result was Chris Brent's high aspect ratio F Arc design of late 2001. This gave us a further breathing space to work on the next generation mainstream Arc because, paradoxically, extreme designs like the Farc are easier to develop than all- around performers.
The F Arc not only bought us some time but taught us a lot, and by the middle of 2002 we had a mainstream high performance kitesurfing kite, the G Arc, developed to a marketable standard Of course I'm biased, but with the G, I felt that we had largely closed the gap on the current crop of tube kites- and of course it's never going to be possible to have a design that is superior in every respect, but at last we had a kite with no great weaknesses and some considerable strengths that could hold it's own in any competition.
And, Arc development is still on a strongly rising curve whereas tube kites seem to me to have plateaued- as would be expected after 19 years.
But will the Arc ever break out of its now secure niche and start taking market share away from the dominant tube kites?- will it even survive?
To my thinking it is still vulnerable because of the late start. Tube kites are becoming so established that a different concept, even if better in significant ways, may struggle to build market share much above double figures- not least because we are just one company while there are at least 30 competitors pushing the rival concept.
A strategy we will pursue now is to develop different ranges of Arcs specifically to appeal to different groups of users. While the G Arc range will continue to evolve as our mainstream design, there's obvious demand for a lower aspect ratio Arc with even more inherent stability and superior re-launchability but at some minor loss of efficiency- for beginners, and kite board schools. The key challenge with Arc design is to get more de-power, especially since the recent development by Bruno of 'Bow' tube kites that have close to 100%.
On the higher performance side there's the Farc2 and an over pressure system being developed that has promise. This will no doubt appeal to a small percentage of kitesurfers as well but is primarily aimed at mountain boarders, buggiers and kitesailing.
Arcs are vulnerable to perceptions of poor water re-launching. Because they have much more internal volume than a tube kite, they drift back much quicker, which is desirable. They are also generally more luff resistant than tube kites which means they stay up better, don't require re-launching as often. However, the relaunching techniques are different to those for tube kites and if Arcs are left down for a long time, they can take in water, making re-launching increasingly more difficult. Tube kites don't relaunch perfectly either, can get twisted unrecoverably- and their inflated tubes are susceptible to damage.
Of course, it's winning this great game that matters, but win or lose, it's good to look back now and take some satisfaction from being the first to come up with one or two things- and I won't deny there is also satisfaction in having been able to make a living from having this fun also. Some great friends too.
And yes, I've made lots of mistakes: - The one that comes to mind most often is failing to develop a 4 line foil in time to keep control of the kites-for-buggies market after 1995, (having started the sport of kite buggying in 1990). Fortunately, this was mitigated by the serendipitous development of the C Quad which took back a lot of this lost market for us from 1998, - and our market share of the buggies themselves has held strong right through from 1990.
Unfinished business? - the original goal of developing kite sailing to the point where it is a recognised branch of sailing in general has hovered just out of reach for 15 years. I still hope it's going to happen- possibly soon. Far from being a sedate activity, kite sailing can involve giant leaps in the air and then being dumped on from a great height by a few hundred kgs. of boat. But this is just what pioneers have to do, so that those coming later can enjoy the cabin service. It's a wonderful open-ended research project, motivated by curiosity and with little time pressure or money constraints. Some now I can go out kite sailing and not scare myself shitless, or even get wet!
The future of kiteboarding? Predicting is difficult- especially the future!
Which kite design will prevail? Will it be the current mainstream, one of the fringe candidates or some new concept that will leave us all stranded?? Will different design concepts settle-in to regional and/or functional niches? How far any particular design approach can be taken is truly unknowable, except in hindsight. Kite performance is not just about one characteristic, but a basket of compromises that might eventually be individually tailored to each user. There are probably enough bloody-minded individuals in our sport to prevent any standard establishing unless it truly does offer dominatingly superior performance. One thing for sure, if designs ever settle to the point where they become fashion rather than ideas driven, then I'm out of here!
Boards? We started with water skis- and a slalom ski still works very well for speed and cutting through sharp chop - but is not so good for showy jumping which is where things are at just now. By '98 we'd moved to bi-directionals, but these were not accepted by the windsurfers who started moving into kitesurfing about then. They had an unshakeable belief that boards should have lots of flotation and an almost mystical relationship with certain edge shapes. Unidirectionals were all the go for a year or so then, initially with large fins and endless contentious discussions about fin number and placement. Now minimalist bi-directionals rule, and are excellent for jumping, but an edge will always be worse upwind than a fin. If any sort of course racing is to re-emerge, or if kitesurfers want to mix it with other sail powered sports, there will have to be a development that allows kitesurfers to use windsurfing type fins without blowing their ankles/knees.
Safety is a worry- not just the accidents but the number of elite kite surfers who look like paying the price for just a season or two at the top with a lifetime legacy of aches and pains. But other extreme sports like demonstration skateboarding and stadium mountain biking survive in this environment. Perhaps a "cruiser" kitesurfing genre will develop- or maybe the current crop will all see the light as they get older and bring their kite skills over to the next great thing; kite sailing!
Peter Lynn, Ashburton, New Zealand, 2005.
