It's the start of the season (thank you Hui)...today looks like it's going to be a damn fine day with sweet 18-23kts coming through this afternoon.
With the start of summer, it goes without saying that more & more people will be on the beach, and more and more people walking their dogs or just walking on the beach. Over the past couple of seasons, kiters have been rigging up & launching on the dog exercise area at Leighton.
Leighton Kiters is working with the local council and the Fremantle SLSC to keep the beach open and accessible for kiting. In order to help minimise the risk to other beach goers (and of course, those expensive pooches) LK is working towards having a designated launch/landing area SOUTH of the dog exercise beach.
We encourage all kiters to not rig, launch or land on the dog exercise area. 
So all kiters understand, we are working to have the designated launch & landing area expanded further south than the area historically understood to be the launch area - as outlined in this image:
Thanks for the local info.
Can you just clarify something for me though.
The WAKSA location guide states the following:
"Local Council Law states (except during winter) there is no kiting south of the railway footbridge.
The preferred launching and landing area is North of the railway footbridge and South of the dog beach."
I thought the overpass you pictured was the railway footbridge?
Or is the railway footbridge the one down near Port Beach?
If its the former then the WAKSA website is contradicting you.
Cheers again for the info.
Pharro,
thanks for your question.
The area that the WAKSA site refers to is the area that has been 'historically' set aside for launch & landing. On a busy day, the area is way too small to accomodate the growing number of kiters @ Leighton - hence our efforts to get the area expanded - and part of the message we have been telling the council.
The other key message we are trying to get out to kiters is to move away from the dog exercise area when launching/landing - this proposed expanded area creates a safer environment for everyone at Leighton.
So do you want people to rig up and kite south of the overpass despite local council laws? (In the hope this will get them changed.)
Or have they changed already and WAKSA needs to update its details?
Maybe I'm a bit slow, but I'm still a bit confused about "the right thing to do."
(And if I am, then others might be too.)
Thanks.
Any chance you can do a pic like that for the entire cost, i.e. cott, swanny, city beach, scarbs etc... esp cott, i herd a rumour the council has confiscated some kites in the past!!
I know the general areas, but a clear pic would be aws, esp for nebies. (prob should include rocky, and wind shodow trouble points too)
Recon this would be a massive help to everyone as more people join the obsession and places get crowded.
Cheers Jessie
27 kiters on the water at Leighton this afternoon - not bad for the start of the season...
Again, good questions Pharro...
The number one right thing to do is for kiters to not rig, launch or land in the dog exercise area. This might have been mentioned once or twice already???
As far as we have been advised, there aren't any council by laws restricting launch/landing (the WAKSA site might just be a bit out of date) but if someone can point us in the direction of the said 'by law(s)' it would be appreciated. In our discussions with Fremantle SLSC, there was no mention of any council by laws restricting kiters.
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On this basis, we are 'encouraging' kiters to keep to the southern stretch of the beach - but obviously north of the flagged area at the club. Pharro, if you PM us with your email we can forward you the document we've put to the Club & the Council.
And just for a bit of background/logic behind this was that rigging in an area that joins up with the dog beach seems risky when the number of kiters is growing rapidly.
This is not a comment so much on how 'well trained' Leighton kiters are (generally I find them all pretty good), but more that dogs can be a bit of an 'unknown quantity' regarding running through lines etc. The combination of many kiters and more dogs in summer seemed like a potential issue, hence the 'buffer zone' of 20m or so between the dog beach and the railway crossing seemed like a good idea - soemthing we can't do when we were sandwiched in the middle.
Hi
Thanks for all the effort.
I have a request which is a bit OT.
With these changes we will require to move to the other parking spot between the bridge and the club which have more capacity for our cars and less visibility from the road.
It will invite a lot of thieves there.
Can we all chip in or share the cost of a security camera in the parking spot?
Is there anything we can do to protect our cars?
Cheers
Idiot
During winter I rigged up on the dog beach, I was about to launch but decided to wait until some people and dogs passed. Then a large German Shepard came bounding down one of the pathways and collected my top steering line on his way through causing my kite to launch.
Fortunately nothing came of the event other than the fact that I now have to live with the fact that I have been woofted.
You are lucky
Two years ago when I was packing my kite a dog tagged me as part of his property by peeing on my back!
Good move LK.
Not wanting to cloud the issue but is it still ok to rig SOUTH of the clubhouse also? I haven't kited Leighton much for a couple of years but remember back in the uncrowded days some kiters would rig approx 100-150 m the south side of the club - pretty much near the very bottom of your pic.
Funky,
again, another sensational question.
Discussions with the Freo SLSC highlighted some problems in the past with kiters cruising through the flagged areas in front of the club & the area near the cafe (We KNOW that wouldn't be local WA kiters who would obviously know better that that...)
In our proposal to the club & Freo council, we have pointed out that kiting that far south is not preferred or supported by LK.
There's a safety aspect also - if a kiter dropped his/her kite & then got dragged/blown down wind, they will inevitably be through the area reserved for swimming etc.
We 'encourage' kiters to stay away from that area.
North of the club & flagged area, south of the dog beach.
Gents..and ladies,
I am sure juddy can clear up what has been discussed regarding cameras at leighton to this point, but i just had a quick thought (amazing i know!) which may be dismissed as a very average one, but here goes. Is there such thing as a coin operated camera? councils manage to coin operate every other bloody thing on their streets. What if they had a carpark camera setup..or two...or ten that were coin operated. I know what your thinking, "then those bastards will take our gear, and the pole with the coins and the camera on it"...hey at least they'll have coin for the train home! but if you got out of your car before a sesh, put $2 into the meter which runs camera for an hour or two (for arguments sake) then for $2 you would have piece of mind, and hopefully your gear upon return from the water. This is a small price to pay i think you'd agree, and chances are one of the other friendly kiters has put a buck or two in aswell, ie when theres wind, and kitesurfers, the cameras are rolling.
This could also generate coin for the council (lets see them turn that one down) while decreasing crime, keeping all beach users happy, and keeping those little thieving pricks out of work in work....whatever.
Thoughts?
your photo-shopping job doesn't change local by-laws that prohibit you from kitesurfing in your "green area". Although it might make sense for the law to change, we are still dealing with laws that did not foresee the growth of kitesurfing and make accommodations for it.
Anyone taking the advice given by this PRIVATE MEMBER WITH A USERNAME THAT INDICATES A COLLECTIVE is putting themselves at risk of what ever the penalty for breaking the rules happens to be. I know that changes are trying to be brought about by this user and a group of followers and I support them in their efforts but IT IS STILL ILLEGAL. end of story, do as you like but this is misleading advice.
I will kite where ever i feel like for now (away from the flags etc, i'm not that much of a downer) but ****ty forum posts need to be cut down at the knees
I'm confused - I thought the green area was *pretty much* where hordes of us have been kiting for yonks. If it was illegal, wouldn't someone have been busted by now? Its not exactly like 50 colourful kites on a summers afternoon are hard to spot....
Ta for the clarification! Will pay closer attention to signs next time I'm down there 
Thanks Michael would be great to see green zone pic's for pert.
"Surf craft prohibited 1 Oct until 31 March".... **** doesn't that really screw up our season!!
To clear this up, I took some photos this morning.
This is the sign at near the clubhouse at Leighton. There is a similar sign at the carpark directly opposite Dingo flour mill.
This is the sign at the next beach access immediately north of the "Dingoes carpark"
These signs are the same all the way to the railway overpass and the start of the dog beach. This pretty much matches the green area shown on the kite rigging area, except there is a grey area between dingoes and the next sign. So, perhaps the green area is larger than currently signed, but there is no truth to the statement that one cannot kite south of the overpass.
In LK's discussions with Freo SLSC, they were quite happy for the green area to extend from Dingoes to the dog beach area.
Kitecrazzy: LK is affiliated with WAKSA and has their backing. The Leighton Kiters login represents the views of the group and is separate from Juddy's individual login. Sorry if you feel this is a "****y" post, but we value beach user's safety and our access to this beach. Hence, we are taking a proactive approach to protect this.
Cheers,
Michael.
good work "whatthe" glad to see my memory is not totally crap like the rest of my body although I may have been a little way off on the size of the "no go" area
This is a complete joke though!
