Small Octopus Kite History
In 1976 I went to the US to visit some kite shops (Vancouver, Seattle, San Fransisco, Portland) and get ideas as to what type of designs might find a market there. Walking into a Portland shop, I met John Waters (later with Catch the Wind in Lincoln City) and Grant Radisich(?). This was my first contact with other kite enthusiasts- I wasn't alone in the world after all! Until then I'd been making polystyrene kites and sticked fabric diamond kites (learning how to sew when Elwyn finally lost patience).
On arriving home, I started making small octopus kites. Initially these had circular fabric heads with ratan frames stapled to parallel plastic tentacles (MK 1). I would take these to parks and beaches and sell a few. A contraption with 9 box cutter blades was used to make the tails and the eyes were marked in with a felt pen.
After a few hundred of these, for Mk 2, the tentacles were changed to parka nylon, in one piece with the head, but still using a glued on ratan frame. Mk 3 used a fibreglass bow in a sewed-on fabric sleeve (still with hand-cut parallel tentacles) and this style was ready to take to the first (1978) AKA convention in Ocean City Maryland, the beginning of our export market.
Just before this, there was a technical problem that very nearly killed the product (and our business). For some inexplicable reason, fibreglass bows occasionally broke. It was some years until the cause was established- leaving octopus kites in direct sunlight in cars when the temperature of the fibreglass could reach 130 degrees. This softened the fibreglass resin, causing it to fail by buckling rather than the long splintery type break that bending alone causes. Instructions directing people not to leave their kite behind glass in hot sun was our only solution while I learnt to make pultruded fibreglass rod and experimented with different resins to get better heat tolerance.
In the late 1970's we modified a line-following gas profile cutter (made to cut steel plate) to automate cutting and enable tapered tentacles (Mk 4). Cutting was by a resistance- heated tungsten point, the fabric was wetted to hold it to a glass table. In the 1990s the line drawing was replaced with a digital pattern (halving the table size) and later again to a laser system.
During the 1980s and 90s, sales rose to more than 20,000 of these octopus kites each year and they became an anchor product. Their cardinal virtue is that when children drag them along the ground, they self-launch rather than breaking. Generations of NZers have now grown up with these small octopus kites, some much loved kites having been enjoyed by 3 generations. We would really like to find a Mk1 for our museum- could there still be one out there somewhere?
Peter Lynn, 2023
