Hi All
Have just started busting some big airs but I am having trouble doing a soft landing.
How long do you keep the kite at twelve o'clock for and do you keep the power on the whole way?
A bit of a newbie question but any advice appreciated.
Cheers
Until you start to descend, unless you're going super huge in which case you keep it at 12 a little longer (and I like to wiggle it back and forth to slow my descent from up high there anyway). Once you're back down to 3-5m above the water start steering one way, and if you didn't get any higher than that then steer it as soon as you start descending.
That's how it works in my brain anyway.
When you say 'keep the power on' do you mean keep the bar in? Let's assume so, in which case the answer is 'yes'. More air, and softer landings, provided you steer the kite the right way at the right time.
Darren Marshall has an excellent list of 'how-to's over on his site, here is the boosting one:
kiteboardingschool.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=36&Itemid=78
Loading up your board by popping/edging hard upwind just before take off makes a difference, this stops the under swing effect but under swing usually results more often as a crash than just a hard landing.
For a soft controlled landing on my flat kites as I start to descend from the apex of the jump I bring my kite down and I point my board/body downwind a little so its a 40 degree downwind kind of landing, its also all in the timing because if sending the kite down too fast... its a fast landing but send it too slow and you loose too much momentum when hitting the water and it probably looks but definably feels crap.
Size of kite and type of kite too, as some of the smaller models do tend to drop faster than the larger size of the same brand especially if you have taken off with good technique, you get a feel of a good take off by the more vertical lift as opposed to the slow lofty lift. With my smaller kite what works for me is to send my 9 meter little further back than the 12 meter for extra hang time.
Also ask on the beach by someone that you know kites well, you might be doing something your not aware of. Last season I kept crashing my big jumps and so I asked kitehard what I was stuffing up, some of it was the fact I sheeted out too early at the apex which made me drop faster the rest of it was on my takeoff.
That’s my cents worth..
