To all those who did the epic downwinder at kitestock i have some GPS info for you...
Straight line distance = 26.9km.
Total distance (me) = 40.5km
Total time (me) = 2hrs, 12 mins.
Average speed = approx 25-30 km/h.
Equipment used = 7m airush flow and cardboards 133cm.
Some google earth images below. At first, i tried to keep out deep to try and avoid the wind shadow of the land. At the furtherest point out however, my kite luffed and dropped trailing edge first into the water. I was there for 5 minutes trying to relaunch, about 2km off shore, beginning to not like my situation. Eventually there was a bit of a gust and I managed to get it up again and i immediately headed closer to the shore. All of this was massive teabagging action. The point where i reached the shore is where Geoff saw the shark. He was trying to singal to me but unfortunately i was too dumb to interpret his hand singals. I thought he was showing some sort of tacking movment with his hands, but it was the good old shark signal in hindsight. About 2 mins before he saw it, i saw a small stingray (30cm diameter) jump out of the water and clear at least 2 feet of air!
The last half of the downwinder was good. Plenty of wind finally, and some small swell close to the shore. Shame i was too buggerred from working my kite so hard in the first hour to really enjoy it properly. Still good fun though!
Lol that downwinder was about 25 k's too long.
Me and a mate left about half an hour after the first hopeful pioneers, with the wind still ranging from 5-20 knots SSE. My kite got tangled and inverted 3, yes, three times, and he had to save me.
Then the wind came in and it was sweet for the first half an hour, the other hour and a half was terrible. I was tired and sick of kiting, but still overall it was fun haha
Great stuff mattyjee! Adventure is what it is all about sometimes. I missed the DW but was treated to a very nice spot up the coast....like you though, didn't have enough wind for a while.
Congrats to all who did this DW as the conditions were pretty tough...first light wind and then too much.
We waited and waited for the wind to kick in properly from the SW
but when it did it went straight to over 20knots and then just got stronger and stronger (by the time we got back it was somewhere around 30knots IMO), I was fully lit on my 10 all the way back 
This photo was taken only a couple of K's into it when conditions were still reasonably mild by another half hour there was no way I was going to attempt taking photo's whilst kiting, I was busy just hanging on for the ride, and what a ride it was!!
It was Epic 
Yo Matty,
you can now rest easy that in a shark's eyes you are deemed unsavoury! 
Was good to meet ya and the other roomies. Catch up with ya for a kite one arvo, in the mean time keep an eye out for jumpin stingers mate!
Yes the Epic downwinder was truely EPIC, we were tested to the max, first 2 hours slow roasting on the beach, with a few of us ready to give up, we even had a little piggy spit roast with us, but she got lost behind somewhere.
Our CLOWN did a bit of clowning, and busted a pully on his Warroo half way down, but amazingly fixed it to screem down to the end.
Ian Young did the run in about 45 mins and beat the bus back to South Beach, but you wouldn't expect any less from the legend anyway.
Rob Gannon did the run on a not quite healed up broken ankle, he took the cast off to do the run.
We had three that never got started, and had to be picked up around 6pm from the starting point. And personally I'm very disappointed that Kiteman didn't come to save them.
I know a bunch of guys were talking about doing the downwinder again the next day.
I myself was stoked, and it was one of the highlights of the event, the waves were small, but due to the power in my 9m Rev which I never would have taken out but had no other choice, it turned into a massive speed blast, the inside was still pretty clean and with the wave banks it turned into a 27 km skate park.
Thanks to Pat for driving us and the council for providing the bus.
I want to do it again!!!!!!
What a crazy weekend all round. Being the first off the beach seemed a good idea at the time, but when I was still swimming about 500m out to sea to catch the wind line and launch my kite, I kind of changed my mind.
Wind was really dodgy whole wy down until about 10km from end, but it was great being out in middle of no where with just me and Sam.
Well done to the guy that overtook us and won.
Funny thing is sharks where at front of my mind though
From the clown:
Shout out to Darren from AKS who managed to produce a spare pulley from somewhere in the depths of his van on Sunday (and gave it over for nothin'). Shame he wasn't there when I really needed it 5kms in!
Great great great fun.
Yep, wish I took the 6m and not the 9. When that wind came in it was just crazy gusty. I easily did the biggest boost I have ever done before (with a nice smooth landing thrown in).
Spent most of the time on my own between the front group and rear group.
Found some clown on the beach and gave him a relaunch :P
2007 Waroo's stick together mate ;)
Played in the waves the whole way back, but some of the surf was pretty good in the second last two bays. Very cool.
Can't wait to do it all again some day :)
It certainly looked epic, I was a bit green(pat) with envy as I watched everyone start out after that wind line came through. Next year we better try a bit harder to get a bus driver that isn't me so I can join in too. We will do a few other things differently next year too, but I think it's definitely something to keep on the program.
Youngy, if you're reading this, I crashed out yesterday as soon as I got home but I'll download that track data from my GPS for you tonight.
Ian borrowed my GPS for the run. I downloaded the track data to find:
Total Distance (Youngy travelled) = 27.410 Km , Average speed = 35.15km/h [18.98Knots] , Total Time = 46 minutes
The GPS (Garmin Foretrex 201) was recording track data in high resolution, but with 'automatic' recording interval.
HUGE effort Youngy.
Fact - he beat the bus back to Kitestock central !!!
I will track down the name of the dude who got line honours as well. (Youngy had to take the 2nd bus). No accurate time record for him but an another super fast run.
? anyone know who he was (might be easier than tracking through the sand encrusted paperwork)
And total cred to Marryjee too - he was a barely upwind noob at Kitestock08. Kiting right up there with the best of them this year.
****! Ian must have pointed himself dead straight and charged home in a straight line. I recall he left third but from a bit futher up, which would almost account for the longer distance itself.
For pat: I used a Garmin eTrex with a 20m interval.
I was the fourth one to set off and about the 6th or 7th ish to get in. I dont think that anyone departed for a while after me... I seemed to be the last of the front group. Seems like i should have waited a bit like everyone else did, but for some reason i though it would get better once i was offshore a bit. I was wrong. It was 1.2km out when i got stuck for 5 minutes and drifted 400m parallel to the shore while trying to relaunch.
My timeline:
Departed 11:46 am
Stuck in water 12:15 pm
Jumping ray and shark sighting 12:36 pm
Wind kicked in good 12:42 pm
Finished: 2:02 pm
I've been hell hungry for some more downwinder action since i've been back, they are way more fun out of the metro area.
Nice pics tightlines... got any others?
Really enjoyed the downwinder, even though I was so stuffed afterwards that I could not demo any gear 
.
The first third was tiring and I thought if I have to keep doing this I will have a long walk back, then wowhoo the wind kicked in the waves picked and found myself with my pink tootoo, playing with myself 
, nobody to see for miles. Actually I was sh!tting in that wind but soon forgot about it.
The distance gave me a opportunity to dial in my back hand which was lacking bigtime.
Had to land my kite a couple of times to re adjust lines, then shortened my front lines to such an extent I started to invert, flying with my lines crisscrossed I found a UTE with a tow hitch, managed to unhook my flailing kite to the hitch and correct my lines and off I went.
Would not have missed it for the world - anybody keen for a Swani to Scarbs downwinder this weekend?
Great job Waksa guys and gals, you should feel very proud yourselves.
Cheers
Rich
First of all congrats to the WAKSA Crew, the downwinder was a fantastic initiative that I am sure will become one of the main Kitestock events.
Although the launch area was a bit suss on the day because of the conditions and the wind kept teasing us it was an excellent location once the wind kicked in. I would have preffered to have been on a way smaller kite but it was still fun shooting along in the smooth shallows and hitting a few waves.
Youngy's track data had 634 track points, so that worked out to one every 43m or so. The straight line distance between the first and last trackpoints was 26.76km, compared to the 27.41km he covered, but as you can see it was a reasonably straight course.
I think it was Mike Barron-Sullivan from the first bus that was first in.
For those interested I was flying a 10m Flysurfer Psycho4 (almost getting overpowered in >30 knots at the end) and riding a Spleene Zone 159 x 43 wave board.
Thanks Pat ... for the loan of the GPS, downloading it, driving the bus AND putting in a huge effort before, during and after Kitestock.
Thanks also to Jackie, Phil and the rest of the WAKSA committee for a job very well done - we really do appreciate the huge effort you all put in - hopefully you felt the joy :-)
PS: Try 120km downwinder Freo to Lano - search seabreeze for details
PPS: World record is now over 300km!!!!
A couple more shots
The downwinder bus and crew.
We launched in this
In this photo you can just see a few kites in the very distance, these were the first ones to leave but then the wind died a bit more, so most of us waited a bit longer.
Mattyjee you are probably one of the kites in the very distance, there is about four visible, not sure how visible they are at this resolution, couldn't seem to upload full resolution like previous shots but these ones are a bit to low, I will have to experiment with resizing. My 10DOS and Hammer in foreground.
And landed in this
This is what the ocean looked like by the time I got back to my car at the other end (after a feed and an ale or two).
Hello,
Thanks Tighline and Mattyjee for the GPS info and photos.
The downwinder was a memorable event, together with kiting and been bashed by my 5 year old, 4.5 m kite in 35+ knots the day before
I was on the Flysurfer 10m Speed during the downwinder... The widest wind range I used my kite in was on this day: from barely been able to launch at the start of the DW to barely been able to do anything else than following the kite straight downwind at what felt like 250 km/hr at the end!!!
The downwinder will stay in my memory as an extremely enjoyable experience with this feeling of piloting a Formula 1 at 250km/hr on an impressive scenic road .
Thank you WAKSA for this amazing weekend!
Cheers,
Fred
