Any windsurfers tried kiting?

They plane in 5-10 knots easily and never fall off the plane!

I understand at a certain wind speed they fall out the sky and then a long swim home is likely.

Some kites are much easier to launch out the water than others due to their design.

Just seems to make sense to get one in really crap wind where all windsurfers including foilers struggle.

Is it a difficult sport to learn?

5-10 knots nah, reasonable sized kite vs reasonable sized windsurf they are both going (planing) at similar time but a windsurfer can always sail not planing. Foils seem to hit water before the kiters do.

But it maybe does have appeal in sub 20 knots/12m kite range if you are bump & jumping you aren't really getting wind & ramps whereas kiting you can do heaps. Positives also if you live somewhere it's shallow or are storage/vehicle/transport deficient.

But if you buy new it's not cheap to get into & then you have lessons. Some seem to like the feeling, some who I expected to kite tried it & didnt like it. Others from windsurf wear & tear, not fast or drop every gybe people have also gone permamently to kites.

Then there is the community thing, which in some areas seems to be alot stronger than ws but maybe due to average age of kiting being a bit lower. Plus for anti social types like me it's a bit of a negative getting people to help you launch & all that.

Best to get the lessons to try it & see if you like it, thankfully much of the us vs them has gone & it's just another water thing to do.

20 year windsurfer, 20 year kiter, including 5 years kite foiling. Now giving wingdinging a go.

Basically sub-10 knot foiling is a bit of a myth. It's possible to foil in 10 knots and to ride out lulls provided you maintain apparent wind.

The kite foil racers have a 4 knot minimum for racing. I've never seen the local racers do that, even with huge mega-buck kites.

I am a bit skeptical about the whole 4-6 knot thing. When did you ever see a wind meter mounted in a place it could get a clean air flow that was reading a steady 4-5-6 knots? Wind naturally fluctuates. Even 4 knots over a 5 minute average will include periods of zero wind and it must have periods well over 4 knots.

In extreme light wind nothing will relaunch. The trick is to never crash your kite. That's fairly doable with a little practice and good technique. A light weight kite is less likely to stall and fall if you lose apparent wind.

I prefer a 12m lightweight 3-stut inflatable kite for light winds. If it drops it's fairly easy to self rescue and sail in on the downed kite. It's kind of fun.

The appeal of wingdinging is that if you run out of wind it's easy to paddle in and tow the wing. That's what I practiced on day 1. It's easy.

It's a bit ironic seeing windsurfers discussing the most efficient foils and sails and all the rest. If they wanted efficiency they would have switched to kites decades ago. Even now a freeride kite foiling kit will run rings around a racing windfoiler.

switched to kites years ago and have switched back to sail.
Now both as suits
kite quicker to learn than sail.
don't have to gybe a kite twin tip
can get in more trouble with kite if you fail to respect safety
Kite equipment is more compact, can use your surfboard for surf / kite
kites have shorter life than sails, kites don't like hot cars
kites cheap compared to sail,mast,boom,extension,universal.
modern sails are works of art. Technology and fabrics
I like wave riding when windy more with sail than kite
12m wave kite on a surfboard (>25Ltrs) will get you through white water in >13knts @ 75kgs.

I dabbled in kiting. It was very fun and easy to pick up. I was planing in winds I could never imagine with 'normal' windsurf kit. I was living in Houston at the time so kitesurfing was the only water based option.
I gave up after Houston though. Open water kiting just made me nervous. At least in Houston I was never deeper than waist level. But in the sea the consequences of getting it wrong would be too severe.
Now I'm back windsurfing I watch them regularly drift through the windsurf zone. I know what it's like so keep an eye on them until they hit the beach. Rescued a few lost boards. Called out the rescue boat on one occasion for a guy who looked like he didn't have energy to swim in.

I kited from 99 to 2009 and it is a great sport with lots of disciplines and is much easier to master than windsurfing.

Pre foiling: I would have stuck with kiting if I lived in a light wind area

Post foiling: The 3 knot advantage of kiting, over WS, has been eliminated by which ever foiling discipline you desire.

Race kite foiling is not a fair comparison as it only appeals to select individuals, just like formula WS only appealed to select individuals.

I reckon my foiling sessions in light wind on sail are equally as good as those recreational kite foilers: they might get going slightly earlier, but they do much more swimming and won't be able to schlog to the better wind.

I think the exodus from non-foiling kiting to wingfoiling is pretty high right now. So if I was a windsurfer jealous of kites, I would start wind foiling or wing foiling.

Using the 80:20 rule, 80% of sessions on a foil are better than anything on a surface board. The ability to carve and glide and swoop in any conditions is highly addictive.

It's both satisfying, and a bit lonely, being out having fantastic sessions on days when other people don't bother going to the beach. That 3 knot advantage is the difference between going to the beach for a look and scoring an epic session, and not bothering. Given that actual winds can be 40% higher than forecast then an 8 knot forecast is often worth a look.

Absolutely in good surf I would be on a surfing board of some kind. The feel of a wave crashing behind your ear and a green wall lining up in front of you is very special. On the other hand, riding clean, small surf on a foil with some kind of wind powered supplement is highly grin inducing. See above.

There's a crew of windsurf LT riders in our area. I often feel nostalgic for that gliding feeling. My internal cinema still runs through images of bashing tacks in chop in the early 80's.

Discussing the potential failures of each kind of craft is a bit futile. Everything can fail. In reality catastrophic gear failures are very rare. I have towed in three sailboarders and one kiteboarder over the years. So far I have been able to get myself back to the beach.

I strongly subscribe to the "no further than you're prepared to swim" rule. I've never actually had to swim more than 50 metres. There's rarely any great benefit going miles out to sea, unless there's a surfable reef out there. It's more fun, more skilful and more challenging to do lots of turns. I've always done upwinders followed by wave play on the downwind run. The main difference between the craft is the time it takes. 4km upwind used to take an hour. With a foil it can be done in 15 minutes.

One kitemare performed, after seeing a handful every 20 sessions, is enough for most.

I think one of the biggest factors in having fun on the water is doing what suits your local conditions. I gps speed sail (Windsurf) slalom race (windsurf) Kitefoil (on a surf setup) and Do downwinders from my local beach with kite and surfboard. All these are the best sports I do on their day and I'm fortunate to have great conditions for all within 20 mins of home however if I lived near a lake with a keen crew of LT sailors I would take part in that instead. You also need to factor in a good bunch of guys to get wet with and suddenly who cares if a slalom setup goes 2 knots faster or a Kitefoil can run in less wind as long as you are getting out having fun.

Never tried kiting. Local kiters had a small light wind advantage over windsurfers, but using an old longboard reversed that.

With foils now, a couple of foil kiters at our local spot have a clear advantage. They can keep foiling when I'm struggling in lulls on 6.5 / i84. One of the issues we often face is that the wind near the surface is very much up and down (decoupling), and they seem to be catching cleaner wind. But every now and then, they are in for a long swim or walk while I can slog home.

One of our very light weight windsurfers is now getting into foiling, which will be interesting. She's probably less than 100 lb, and can usually plane in 11 knots on a 6.1. If she ends up getting a big foil, she might be able to get going at the same time as the kite foilers. It's more likely she'll end up on a smaller wing, though. We get 11 knots or more at least every other day, so she'll get plenty of play time with the wing.

I learned to kite well before windsurfing. After dozens of hours of expensive lessons, it only took one death spiral to give it up. The feeling of being dragged along in the water head first, having tossed the safety and still not slowing down, was frightening (you pray you can throw the safety leash so you don't have to do a "hail Mary" with your knife). After losing my board to the ocean, almost losing my kite, but surviving, I avoided water sports for the following 7 years.

Also, after moving back to Toronto where there's not much kitesurf culture, I had no confidence anyone could help me launch, land, or be there to help if things went sideways.

Windsurfing just feels so much safer. I can ride overpowered by adapting my technique. The sail depowers easily and you can always paddle back in to shore if necessary. All of this means that the gear never runs away dragging you through the water. And if the wind dies (which happens more often than not here), it's always possible to slog home while the kiters are stuck.

If I had started windsurfing at the outset, I would have been riding for over a decade by now instead of a year. But I'm so glad I switched. I can't imagine going back to kiting.

I must admit a temptation when I see them carving up a shore break in 10-16kts like it's no big deal.

It's an interesting one, I've windsurfed for 17 years and Kitesurfed the last 6. Juggling both sports and loving it.
Sub 10knots can be dam challenging! More so being able to keep the kite in the sky I found. Foiling was epic when it all clicks though.
Now I'm kiting from 15-20plus. Anything over that 25knots plus wind. I'm on the windsurfing kit

kiting I found simple to learn and progress super quick. Just be aware it can go wrong quick haha