Happy New Year to you all!
A great start to the New Year for me.
My little man is interested in kiting.
Most gear however is designed around shoe size 42.
Does anyone have any experience with this?
What is a good kite size?
Who makes harnesses and boards that small etc.
Any tip or suggestion is welcome.
thanks!
cheers
Rene
how physically developed is the young lad? theres been some reports of it affecting really young kids spines a bit. but i have a suspision there more from being to overpowered and throwing tricks at age of 10 rather then being underpowered and just learning for a few years untill they hit there teens.
your going to want some 15m lines a rather small kite like a 7m (4's a bit to fast to learn on) and think dakine has a few miniature harnesses youd swear were made for a hamster. thing with harnesses is the harness hooks all seem to be the same size. and they point straight up on the little kids cause there so light where as ours are relatively horizontal. now to fix this you want to get a harness that has that hook as LOW as possible. so a seat harness maybe the go.
also the bar throw tends to be to far away for there little arms so triming the bar ("depowering" it a bit) will help out a bit here but its never going to be as comfortable for an adult. there are some female bars around but theyve basicly just made the depower/power adjustments lower.
apart from that golden rule is never teach family and friends but also the majority of kitesurf instructors i find simply dont have experience teaching children.
so how you want to take that i dont know.
hope that helps a little and good luck if you make sure you have a firm grip on back his harness and you have him 100% drilled to let go of the bar second you say so it wont be to hard. but if you dont have those 2 things **** can go wrong fast
I would recommend an ozone uno on short lines.
For a harness get a seat harness - this will help with the bar reach as it brings the hook lower down. If you are comfortable you can modify the chicken loop so its smaller too.
As for foot straps shop around and you will find small ones - you can even get the ones with the heel straps if he struggles to keep his feet in.
For a harness try the smallest flying objects waist or the seat-waist hybrid. Was a great fit for my skinny eldest. If money is no object I'd go the flysurfer viron2 or one of the new strutless kites.
The biggest problem I found was the featherweights get overpowered quick on the small tube kites. You need say 14 -16 knots to get your 6m wave kite airborne and they get overpowered at 20. You want a bigger usable windrange that the kite can fly stable in (not constantly fall out of the sky on the low end). Something light that flies early so they can use a big board in light wind. Switch boards when the wind hits 15 so they can get more time on the water with the same kite.
+1 for drilling in the safety releases, over and over, every time I run my lines out to adjust or wash, safety safety safety. Get them involved and practice releasing from a post or gate.
Lots of body dragging, as much as you can. It's surprisingly fun for them, they learn heaps and gain confidence. Just train them to eject the lot if they get into any real trouble.
And don't be affraid of a big slow kite when the conditions allow it. Both my kids had better runs on a 17 that was just flying as apposed to the faster smaller kite.
Select to expand quoteflyingcab said..
I would recommend an ozone uno on short lines.
For a harness get a seat harness - this will help with the bar reach as it brings the hook lower down. If you are comfortable you can modify the chicken loop so its smaller too.
As for foot straps shop around and you will find small ones - you can even get the ones with the heel straps if he struggles to keep his feet in.
whats the uno like? how many hours have you flown one?
blade produced a kite for kids this year:
bladekites.com/kite/tiny-beast/
or epic kites:
www.epickiteskiteboarding.com/gear/kites/junior-pro-V2/junior-pro-v2-4-kite/
Used a Uno only yesterday with my 8 yr old. All good. Epic junior bar 15m, have an ozone bar waiting in the wings. It's the go.
so theres no funny flight characteristics with it at all ay eppo? sounds pretty good then might have to look into it.
been looking for an alternative to 15m lines on a 7m for kids. ozone selling 15m line sets? when i last was teaching (funnily enough was a ozone/epic school) i thought the line endings didnt match swapping bars between the 2 brands and had to make up some converters?
We have a 4mt Airush dna for our 10year old who is a feather weight.. He also has an xs girls harness which is black and blue so he has no idea it for girls :)
Ozone Catalyst V1 4M, or Reo 4 or 5M with the kids bar. NP (cabrinha dealers) XS female waist harness, whichever harness you choose it really needs to fit snug though, and its just a sad fact of life that your 11yo will go through about 2-4 harness size changes at least before they reach 18/20.
