You may not have seen a kiteboarder yet, but you will soon. Combining aspects of wakeboarding, surfing, windsurfing, and even parasailing, kiteboarding gives you the chance to walk on water and fly through the air, so if you're in the mood to try an exciting new watersport, beach your boat and give kiteboarding a try. All you need is a kite, a board, and a breeze, so it's no wonder that kiteboarding is one of the hottest, fastest-growing watersports around.
Like most board sports, it's tough to pin down the exact origin of kiteboarding, or kitesurfing, as it's sometimes called. In the 1980s, there were occasional sightings of "kite-skiers" and "flysurfers." Around that time, Cory Roeseler developed his Kiteski system in Oregon, using a rigid-frame kite with a reel-bar and water skis. Around that same time, the Legaignoux brothers, Bruno and Dominique, were working with inflatable kites and water skis in France.
In the
mid-1990s, kiteboarding caught big air. The Legaignoux brothers released the Wipikia, an inflatable
kite with fixed-length lines, and in Hawaii, surfing legends Laird Hamilton and Manu Bertin began
kitesurfing the waves of Maui's north shore, riding surfboards with footstraps. Some still prefer
to ride surfboards with footstraps, but the majority of kiteboarders ride a board very similar (and
often identical) to a wakeboard for maximum maneuverability.
The kite, though,
plays a much larger role than the board, providing the all-important pull and allowing the
kiteboarder to be both rider and driver. Modern kites, using the Legaignoux design, have inflatable
leading edges and struts, which give the kite shape and stability in the air. At the same time,
that inflatable structure allows the kite to float when you take a spill, as well as allowing the
kite to be easily relaunched from the water. Best of all, the kite will even provide a bit of
flotation if you need it after a really tiring run.
Although both kite and board technologies have advanced considerably since the 1980s (and even since the 1990s), kiteboarding is still a relatively inexpensive sport, especially for beginners. According to Trip Forman, co-founder of Real Kiteboarding in Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, "To start kiteboarding, you only need a trainer kite and some wide-open space, like a beach or an athletic field." Real Kiteboarding, the largest kiteboarding school and retailer of kiteboard equipment in the world, operates three full-service kite centers as well as a website. They sell a trainer kite and a training video, "Zero 2 Hero," that will get you started in the sport for only $179. Once you master the basics and progress, the equipment becomes a bit more expensive. Expect to spend in the neighborhood of $1,000 to get fully geared up, and more if you absolutely have to have the newest, most technologically advanced gear on the market.
Forman says learning to kiteboard is a three-stage process. First, learn to fly and control
the kite; second, learn to ride the board, "by itself, much like wakeboarding," he says; third,
combine the two skills. So for at least the first day or two, as a kiteboarding newbie, your whole
focus is on learning to properly fly and control the kite, with both feet safely and firmly planted
on solid ground.
Flying and controlling a kiteboard kite is a bit different from handling the old Gayla
bat-kites of yesteryear. It's a skill that you can learn on your own, purely through trial and
error, but kiteboarders are virtually unanimous in advising that you get started by taking a lesson
or two from a professional instructor. "The learning curve is kind of like snowboarding," says
Forman. "It's a very steep curve, so professional instruction is the first and most important step
in learning to kiteboard." Forman says that students at Real Kiteboarding, "go from rank beginner
to riding upwind and jumping in one or two weeks. Their learning curves are nearly vertical. That
same progression takes self-taught riders a year and a half or longer."
One of the
misconceptions about kiteboarding is that you have to have a lot of physical strength to
participate in or even learn the sport. Not at all. You need a base level of physical fitness and
capability, just as you need a certain level to wakeboard or ski or even swim, but you don't have
to be a bodybuilder. Forman says he's taught people ages 8 to 80 how to kiteboard. He does say that
you need to be very comfortable in the water before you try to get started in kiteboarding.
"It's just like wakeboarding or skiing," he says. "If you're not comfortable in the water,
you can't relax and focus on the sport." Tense riders, he points out, have a tendency to try and
muscle the kite or the board, "and you can't fight the kite." Instead of fighting the kite, you
dance with it, to the rhythm of the wind.
In spite of what you may have heard, you don't need big wind to kiteboard. In fact, a 10-mph
breeze is enough to get you up and going. Forman offers a simple rule of thumb: "If there are
whitecaps on the water, there's enough wind to kiteboard."
Truth is, it's probably best to learn in relatively calm conditions. A "gentle" breeze will give a beginner a greater margin of error and make it easy to keep your speeds well within your skill envelope. But with kiteboarding's steep learning curve, it's usually not very long before even beginners find themselves skimming across the water at 20, 25, even as fast as 30 mph, and catching three or four feet of air, even when they're launching from flat water. With a wave as a launch ramp, beginners can find themselves soaring 15 feet or more above the water.
Nonetheless, kiteboarding is a relatively safe sport. Of course, there's an element of risk
in any sport, especially a sport where you're going to be taking the occasional face plant (and
every kiteboarder, sooner or later, experiences the singular joy of the face plant), and it's
ultimately the individual rider's responsibility to use all appropriate safety gear and to ride and
behave safely. However, there are a few things working to make kiteboarding less dangerous than it
may appear from shore.
First, there's the water. Nobody's saying that falling into the water at 20 mph is one of
life's joys, but it's a lot less injurious than falling onto pavement or even grass at that same
speed. Water's a fairly forgiving medium in that respect. And as long as you're wearing a PFD (a
must at all times), a kiteboard fall is no more risky than a wakeboard fall, or coming off of an
inflatable. (For promotional purposes, expert riders are sometimes photographed without PFDs - as
shown here - under careful supervision.)
Second, as Forman points out, "The new teaching methods and gear are very safety-oriented.
For self-rescue, the kite is filled with air and easily floats the rider and board so you can
safely return to the beach."
Reach the beach, though, and the odds are strong that you'll soon be right back out on the
water. "The pull of the kite is addictive," says Forman. "You have to have it all the time." And as
long as you have a little bit of a breeze, the right equipment, and a little bit of professional
training, you can enjoy the pull of the kite whenever the jones strikes.