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Jason, Don and I were out for a long time playing in the slush on Long Pond on 6-7m kites and downhill skis. I logged a total of 60 miles with a top speed of 48 mph. Jason managed 52!. Don was a real champ getting his jumps worked out. He had a good number of impressive wipe outs. Most impressive was that every time you fall you get soaked in the near inch of water pooled on the ice but he kept going. Good thing it was warm out. I’m hoping to get out Saturday morning for another session before the rain.
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The down winder mentioned above was exciting, not very enjoyable however. Seeing the Montana updates on the windline as 7m conditions at Montana and it looking lighter at my house I went with a 9m kite. This was clearly too small of a kite as my novice love, Lindsay pointed out while helping me launch on my planned down winder. It’s a good thing going down the beach was the plan as there was no staying upwind on a 9m this day. I made the best of it by heading well out into the lake in hopes of finding stronger winds. I found the wind to slightly stronger away from shore, with large holes aplenty. To keep things interesting I mixed in some downloops and downwind kite loops with plenty of kite crashes which I attribute equally to my budding skill and the inconsistent wind. One of these crashes resulted in the kite inverting (flipping the lines inside out). I’ve had good luck with simply releasing the kite and letting it sort it’s self out in the past, but when I tried this time, the kite became further wound up in it’s self. There are very spots to safely land a kite as most of the homes have concrete break walls between my house and Montana Beach. I tried to come ashore near Schaller’s, but the wind was too light for me to keep the kite in the air within 100 yards of shore, so I continued down to Charlott wishing I could loop the kite for extra power in the turns but the lines did not untwist well following inverting the kite. I tried to keep my speed up as much as possible to increase the apparent speed of the kite and to improve of my odds of not swimming in. When I came to within 50′ from shore I was no longer able to keep the kite in the air. Due to the light conditions I was able to walk ashore without having to worry about the kite. I was able to relaunch just long enough to set the kite on the beach.
Cheesecake Brownie arrived as I was lying out my lines to untangle them prior to winding things up. We had a nice chat about the weather and how what we were seeing was very far off the wind prediction and recent events surrounding his new nickname. He offered to give me a ride home as he was heading to check out the conditions at Long Pond anyway.
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I think it will look more like this:
I’m not sure if there will be enough room to rig on the ‘beach.’ Should give us something to drift into before going to Canada on a S, SW wind. I say ‘beach’ because they are dumping the dredging onto the rocks. I’m not sure if they are bringing sand. Eventually, sand should place its self on the rocks from wave action. Could make a great flat water section on East wind days.
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