Kitesurf the Irish Sea

Border News Footage and Louis Tapper New World Record 2000km

2010-09-23T14:23:00.000-07:00

We've acquired the footage courtesy of Border TV for those that missed it - its up on the video page.

Just noticed that Louis Tapper has completed his epic 2000km kitesurfing trip of the Brasil coastline.

Check out the news clip on Youtube and his website here. What an acheivement 2000km in 30 days - around 66 km (40 miles) per day - he had his fair share of ups and downs and set a new world record.

Well done to Louis!

Site updated with Trip reports and Gin Website

2010-09-10T16:47:00.001-07:00

I've updated the site with some more sponsor information and published trip reports from three perspectives - Mine, Tim Green from Fluid Productions who filming from the support boats and Rebecca Dooley, Fraser's wife who spent a hell of a lot of time in the background sorting out a whole multitude of things whilst we were completing the trip.

Thanks for the input guys.

Just noticed Gin Kites have put a feature on their website about the trip.

Whilst I was checking it out I noticed they have a new range of snowkites - the Yeti - check it out.

Use of the Minibus Donated by Thomlinson Junior School

2010-09-09T09:07:00.000-07:00

I've just got word that the use of the minibus has been donated by the Head at Thomlinson Junior School (Wigton).

We used the minibus to get us across to NI from Cumbria and we expected to pay for the use, however it has kindly been donated by the school. The bus was driven by Mike "The Stig" Dooley.

A big thanks to them both.

Website Updates and Radio Programmes

2010-08-25T02:21:00.000-07:00

I've managed to get copies of Frasers interviews from Radio 4 Live on Friday morning and Radio Cumbria on Monday morning.

I'm going to be updating the website over the next week or so hopefully to include the Radio Interviews and hopefully the border TV footage if we can get it.

I still need to gather together a selection of images and a little bit of video from various sources. We didn't really manage the use of our helmet cam batteries very well, but to be fair the Go-Pro control software doesn't not lend itself to battery conservation and also actually switching it on and off and getting it back onto video is a right pain in the backside when your kiting. If it went straight to video it would much better. A new firmware is on the cards soon so hopefully that will fix it. A waterproof wireless remote would be cool!

Richard Branson is trying again today - wind looks a little light and variable today but tommorow looks epic down there. Good luck to them. They've got a top notch team of kiters down there so if one of the doesn't break the record I'll be very suprised. I know who my money is on!

Border TV shows the crossing and Sir Richard is thwarted by the weather

2010-08-24T08:25:00.000-07:00

Border TV did a small piece on the crossing and made a bit of a mess of it by mentioning the website but not putting the caption up for the weblink. They said it would be fixed for the later program but again it was not right. Frustrating for us yet again.

Sir Richard Branson's record attempt on crossing the England Channel had to be cancelled by high winds - basically it was good for kiting but not for the safety boats.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/aug/24/richard-branson-kiteboard-record-off-course

Welcome to our world Sir Richard - We had to wait two bloody years :-)

Sir Richard Branson kitesurfing the English Channel

2010-08-22T16:36:00.000-07:00

Well it seems like you can't do anything without a copycat event!

Sir Richard Branson is going to kitesurf across the channel for his 60th Birthday, along with 5 time world champion Aaron Hadlow and Laird Hamilton.

Good luck to them, this will raise the profile of kiting for sure and can't do our achievement any harm for sure.

http://www.aaronhadlow.com/2010/08/22/english-channel-crossing/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-10652352

Dunno where they get the 6 hours from though - Chris Bull did it some years ago - there AND back in under 4 hours - but they had pretty strong wind and caned it.

We finally did it!!

2010-08-22T00:02:00.001-07:00

Well we finally did it. After two years of planning and several false starts we completed the crossing of the Irish Sea from Cloghy in Northern Island to Silloth in West Cumbria. We set of from Cloghy at 09:00 Saturday and landed at Silloth at 18:00 a distance on the GPS of around 110 miles.

I'll do a more detailed write up once I get some more time but thanks to everyone who helped on the day - we couldn't have done it without you especially at such short notice. Everything didn't go as planned but we did it nevertheless.

To everyone who helped us a big thank you is due and I will post more details in due course.

I must thank all our family and friends who supported us throughout this two years and without whom we couldn't have done it.

The reception we got at Silloth beach was fantastic - a big thanks to everyone who turned up to meet us.

This was for you all. Thank you all so much.

Cancelled for today.

2010-08-20T04:48:00.000-07:00

Well the weather defeated us yet again. It was agreed that it was not safe for the boats and crew due to the wind speed and sea state. We are the process of discussing options for tomorrow. Meanwhile we are going to ride with some of the lads from NI.
Fingers crossed. Again.

Breakfast at Wong's Royale in Portavogie Northern Island

2010-08-20T00:38:00.000-07:00

We are over in Ireland having a leisurely breakfast waiting for the weather to clear. Its still pretty bad over in cumbria but it's clearing over here. The wind is looking good at the moment and the forecast is to drop. We are waiting for a decision from the boats. This could be it finally!

We are go!

2010-08-19T05:03:00.000-07:00

We are heading to the ferry at Stranraer. The forecast is looking potentially good but could be on the strong side early in the morning. We've taken the chance and hopefully the boats will be able to sail. It's going to be touch and go!

Thanks to John Lowry and New Gin Zulu II

2010-08-14T02:19:00.001-07:00

Just a quick up date to give a thanks to John Lowry over in Northern Ireland for the offer of boat support from the coast of Northern Ireland to rendezvous with the boats from Cumbria.

http://southdowncoastguard.co.uk/

We are into our second two week window of the year which closes on the 22nd August and typically we've not had the right conditions. A week of wind with a bias from the North is no good for us. Pretty chilly as well for this time of year.

It's forecast to turn SW again later in the week so we'll see what that brings.

On another note it was a good weekend down at the Barrow round of the BKSA. We've also been flying the new Gin Zulu II from Gin Kites. Can't really fault the kite in any way - contact us for a demo!

Silloth Kite Festival

2010-07-23T13:33:00.000-07:00

We are planning to do a downwinder if the conditions allow from Allonby to Silloth for the Silloth Kite and Water Sports festival.

We will be taking the Gin Tent and have a pitch at the festival. Should be fun!

I've changed to Video so the newly edited Promo works again.

I've also got a quiver of Gin Zulu II Kites on demo from UKAirsports. Sweet kite - not had a great deal of testing time as the wind has been fairly poor lately but what riding we've done the concensous is that they are a great product.

Its been a while

2010-07-10T09:28:00.001-07:00

It's been a while since the last update, but we are still here and still looking to complete the crossing this year. Our training hasn't been as good as last year as the wind just hasn't been consistent. We had an excellent winter though with substantial distance covering in the Lake District and Pennines.

We have decided on 2 slots for the attempt 14th - 28th July and 6th -22nd August conditions and boat support allowing.

We are also planning the Haggis Run again from Allonby to Southerness and back but the weather has conspired against us on the last couple of weekends we had it planned. Watch this space.

Many thanks to all the sponsors - we will get this done - hopefully it will be this year!!

Winter Blues

2009-11-25T07:24:00.000-08:00

Well winter is upon us and the clocks have gone back so kiting is limited to weekend sessions. We are still planning the crossing but its definitely going to be next year. A new cut of our promo video is being worked on and should be up soon. Many thanks to everyone who supported us this year even though we didn't accomplish the goal - we will be back next year - certainly a bit wiser - we've learned a lot this year - that's one of the great things about kiting - you never, ever stop learning new things and probably never will.

It's also getting pretty cold now and almost dry suit weather now. I just found out that my 6 year old crewsaver suit has a leak and got a little back damp on a recent session. We're hoping for lots of snow again this year so hopefully we'll get plenty of snowkiting and snowboarding in. Last season was epic and snow is forecast for this weekend!

http://www.lake-district.gov.uk/weatherline

This could be end of the road for this year

2009-10-08T08:44:00.000-07:00

Well we didn't go this time, again we made the call not to go as the weather is not ideal, the heavy rain that was originally coming in later has decided to head in early and the wind strength is higher than we anticipated (getting up to force 7, originally the upper end of force 5 was predicted. This combination, along with the poor visibility means that its just to dangerous for us and the boats.

Again it's a tough call to make as we all want to do it, but we all want to do it safely and make sure that we get across.

This means that barring a miracle we are going to postpone the crossing until next year. We are all shocked that in the last month we've not had the right conditions.

We'll be having a meeting to discuss our options over the next week or so.

Thanks to everyone for their support so far! Watch this space!

We could be go!

2009-10-07T15:47:00.001-07:00

We could be go tomorrow morning. We are making the decision at 11:00am when we get a more accurate view of the forecast and discuss the situation with the support boats.

Fingers crossed after 9 months of planning!

Not good news.

2009-09-29T15:49:00.000-07:00

Well we've had the most unusual September for a long time. Several blocking high pressures and the jet stream further north than usually has meant we've not had the wind or weather that would suit us. We are also running out of daylight hours at a rapid rate of knots!

Here's the latest from Dave Thomson

Hi Marra,

Yes - There are no possible days currently forecast (about 10 days ahead ) The jet stream seem to be getting established North of us so its mostly NW and W. Some chance of SW about a week from now but it looks cloudy and rainy again.

I'll keep looking and let you know if there are any suitable days coming up.

David

Rising and setting times for the Sun

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?month=10&year=2009&obj=sun&afl=-11&day=1&n=919

We only have 11 hours of daylight up until 8th October - This is pushing it for safety reasons. Its also getting colder. We do not want to spend a night in the Irish Sea!

Crossing postponed and more training

2009-09-21T15:43:00.000-07:00

We decided to postpone the trip at the last minute on Sunday morning due to the wind forecast. The metoffice was predicting up to force 8 and whilst its kiteable its not good for a long crossing. The boats would not sail in that sort of wind and the sea state is pretty rough. We now have to wait for another weather window. We hope that its soon as we are running out of light and also the cold will be a factor.

We did a training day today with all 6 of us riding and using all our equipment. We have a few improvements to make to our equipment and we'll be looking into that over the next few days.

We planned to go from St Bees down to Silecroft and back however the wind changed from the forecast SW to SSW when we were on the water and we only managed to get to seascale and back as it was a hard upwind slog with lots of tacking. We covered 45 miles in about 3 or so hours. There were a few glitches on the way but it turned out to be a useful excercise!

Lets hope we get some good wind soon!

Further weather update

2009-09-19T03:33:00.000-07:00

We have a further update for the weather from Dave Thompson. We are amber almost green for travel on sunday and attempting the crossing on monday. Forecast is looking excellent!! Hopefully the sea state will be good as we've had not much wind recently.

Hi Martin,

Hmm - Monday morning is still looking great but theyve now got the front coming in a bit earlier, so by about lunchtime there will be winds up to around 30 mph (still SSW ) - and the rain will be chasing you across, although the winds reduce and veer a bit after the front is through .

If anything I think it likely that their prediction will be a bit early (more often than fronts are later than forecast ) Its still a real possibility that it will change back to yesterday forecast.

Is 30mph too much ?

Tuesday - winds are OK strength but WSW veering to W by the afternoon - and the rain will have cleared.

David

Update on Weather

2009-09-15T13:37:00.000-07:00

It looks like our weather guru's are telling us that this blocking high pressure will be moving away towards the end of the weekend and bringing back southerly or south westerly winds again.

If it does, and we'll know closer to the weekend, then we could be a go on monday or tuesday!

Sponsors funding and raising money

2009-09-14T00:10:00.000-07:00

Just got word from Stuart that he has secured funding from AMEC for the trip. This will complete our requirements to ensure that the boats and travel are fully funded, thank to Stuart and AMEC for this.

It appears that people are not using the Just Giving accounts as with the amount of publicity we've given the site the amount is moving very slowly. Martin was competing at the British Paragliding Cup and raised over £300, all these people had been emailed but not donated until Martin got them in a headlock and made them cough up. (Only kidding!) Thanks to all the Pilots at the event for sponsoring Martin and us, its a good cause people so give as much as you can in these testing times.

The point is that the Justgiving site is safe to use so please use it if you can!

We just recieved the Mapsource software from Garmin and here's the route on the Chart.

Back from Tiree - Another meeting - Long Range Forecast

2009-09-11T08:59:00.000-07:00

A couple of the riders had a mental trip in Tiree, 5 days out of 5 riding, some good waves and strong winds. There'll be footage and photographs on the Cumbria Power Kiting Club website.

We've got the radios and we need to program them. We've also got wetsuits, boots, harnesses and vests from Pro-Limit who've given us an excellent deal on equipment.

We had a meeting last night to do some rider interviews, some final planning, test radios and discuss routing plans. We also put the Gravitron and Blue-Eye logos onto some of the kites.

We also have some news on the forecast from one of the paragliding meteo experts.

Here's the info:

Hi Martin,

We're starting to get long range forecasts for the 14th onwards - and the general pattern is looking very hopeful. The big HP which is setting up from Wednesday this week will give calm seas and when it moves E it will introduce winds between S and SW as the next LP approaches. Thats currently forecast to happen around mid next week. The problem is that the forecast models usually underpredict how long blocking HPs will last, so we may have a situation of it looking good about 4 days ahead then finding that the HP sticks and delays the winds starting. (I guess from a flying point of view that would be good !) I'll keep you updated as it develops.

David

So it looks like we have a potential go. Bring it on!

Meeting - Tuesday 2nd September

2009-09-01T15:11:00.001-07:00

Well its getting close to the time now. We have two weeks until the window begins. The big training distance did not transpire we did not get the forecast wind for once, it was very light, way to light to attempt it. We've done a bit more riding in pretty nasty wet and rainy conditions.

I've been at Solfest all weekend which isn't ideal training but I intend to make up for it over the next few days. Had an hour or so in the rain yesterday and went to the beach again tonight but it was very light again.

A few of us are heading up to Tiree this coming weekend and we're super stoked about that. Tiree is such an awesome place and the forecast is nuclear so here's hoping its a good trip.

We are having another meeting tommorow to discuss plans for a slightly longer route that will take us to Silloth.

I think we're as ready as we can be right now, we couldn't have done much more kiting.

We also have some more sponsors on board for both funds and equipment. More on this as it arrives.

More training - Increased Distance this time

2009-08-24T13:58:00.000-07:00

Tommorow the forecast is looking good for another trip down the coast, the Met Office is predicting 15-30 mph SW turning SSW later on. This makes the direction ideal to get from St Bees to the mouth of the Duddon Estuary. A distance of some 24 miles. Getting there will require a bit of tacking as the coast is not perfectly straight, back should be a bit of a broad reach so should be a bit . Four of us will be (weather permitting) tackling this journey which should hopefully result in a trip of around 65-70 miles. Not far from the 90 or so from Ireland to England. This trip is also ideal from a safety point of view because the wind is direct onshore so we need no boat support and even though some of the coast is fairly sparsley populated there are train stations at regular intervals. We'll also be travelling with GPS, VHF radios and mobile phones.

Update on Training

2009-08-23T14:52:00.000-07:00

The training day last week did not happen due to some pretty bad weather. It was raining really heavily and the sea state was not ideal for the boat to get out so we had to postpone.

We had a really perfect day wind and weather wise on friday 21st so Fraser and I set off to Silecroft. It's 22 miles as the crow flies. The direction was SW so it involved some tacking to get beyond some of the points and scars along the coast. You can see the GPS track information in the images. We covered a total distance of nearly 40 miles. If we had the time we would have attempted to get back which would have been much easier and we'd have been heading more downwind. That would have been about 70 miles or so. Anyway 40 miles is the furthest we've done so far and it went almost without incident and this is the first time that anyone has kited all the way down this section of coast. Again, its cool to be the first people to ever do something! We tested the Aquapac dry bags and they worked well. The life preservers are not ideal as Frasers inflatated accidently, not good. I think buoyancy aids should suffice. As far as fitness goes this was not problem, we really need to be getting up towards 80 miles to see what the effects are. Personally I think we could have went further to the edge of the Duddon estuary with the time we had. This route is ideal for training in a South Westerly. Hopefully we'll get some more opportunities to do this route and complete it there and back. This was the first time I'd flew the Gin Nazca II 15m in anger and I have to say I was very impressed. Its fast turning and like the others has a very good wind range. When we got to Silecroft the Haverigg guys Patty and Kevin had been on 9m and 8m kites, they are lighter than me but still I was comfortable on the 15m. Its fast turning for its size also and I think this will be my kite of choice for the trip. Its nice to be well powered in the lulls to save having to work the kite.

Yet more wind is forecast for this week so more kiting to be done :-)

Training Session Today - Friday 14th August

2009-08-14T00:30:00.000-07:00

We are having a training day today. We have the Solway Protector from Cumbria Fisheries Supporting us and they are doing a training day with us and we are going to ride out to sea for an hour or so and head back to St Bees. We are limited due to the tides. Sunday is looking a perfect direction to attempt to go from Silecroft to St Bees and back, however the wind is going to be really strong so it may not be ideal conditions to go that far. Particulary after our experiences last time! Stuart has access to all the historical wind speeds from the Pile Chimney anemometer and it was reading 49.1 mph about the time we got off the water at Sellafield. I was on my 12m and I was able to handle it, probably 40-45 mph on the beach. If it hadn't been so rocky and we'd have had more light I would have been able to carry on. The ablility of these kites (Gin Nazca II)to spill wind is really remarkable.

Here's a summary of our midweek (Wednesday 12th August) meeting.

Dates:We agreed that the two weekend window we set ourselves would be from 14/09/09 until 28/09/09, however Ed stated that if would be difficult to assemble a complete crew unless the crossing was Friday - Monday, however if conditions are perfect mid week in that time frame we'll just have to see what can be arranged.

Logistics:

Travel and Support - Fraser has a mini bus arranged and accommodation at Robs if we are prepared to sleep on the floor. The general agreement was that we should find a cheap B&B or hotel so that we can get a comfortable nights sleep even if we have to pay for it ourselves.

Boats - When we get the green light to go, the day before ventures west will sail across to Ireland. The riders will get the ferry from Stranraer to Belfast in the Minibus. We will need to find a driver and another body to come with us for launching, although the driver could do this. Cameramen and equipment will be needed if necessary, although I could take my HD camcorder and film us travelling in the bus if the camera crew need to take their own vehicle. (Ed - its a Panasonic HDC-SD100). We need further discussion to firm this up.

Action: Jonny/Ed/Fraser to decide on the arrangements for getting to Ireland and Film crew details

Action: Fraser to sort out some accommodation for us in Ireland.

These are the ferry times below. Therefore I would propose that there are two sailing times that we could aim to hit, depending on the day but my view would be that we get on one of the afternoon sailings so that we can get to Cloughy in time for a quick beach recce.

http://www.stenaline.co.uk/ferry/routes/belfast-stranraer/timetable/

Therefore the timeline will probably be something like this:

1) We decide that the weather is good. - Martin will provide this 72 hours prior.
2) Everyone is informed to begin mobilisation and preparation.
3) Someone books the ferry tickets.4) Someone books the accommodation.
5) The morning of the day before the crossing Ventures West cross the Irish Sea
6) The riders, Support Crew and Camera crew (including those who are going to get on the Ventures West Boat in Ireland) travel to Stranraer on the Minibus for the afternoon Ferry.
7) The riders do a beach recce and get a decent nights sleep without getting lashed on Guinness.
8) The riders arrive at the beach at say 8am get prep'd and set off. (We could decide more accurately based on tides/conditions etc)
9) Fisheries boat sets off from Whitehaven when the tide allows to meet us off the Northern Coast of the Isle of Man.
10) Arrive back in Cumbria super stoked and go on the lash!!

Action: Someone to volunteer to book the ferry and accommodation near the time

Action: Someone to review the tide times and provide us with the tides for the two week period mentioned above. (I can only get 1 month in advance)

The meeting discussed that we need to firm up on individuals to assist us on the trip. We need :-

One (maybe two) people to drive the minibus Stranraer and Back to Cumbria.

One experienced kiter to be present on each of the boats to help out on the way back.

Action: All - Find some people who can make the trip. These people will also be used as stand ins to complete the trip in the event of someone not being able to make it. (Patty from Whitehaven is out due to getting his ACL op date, Ade G can make it but only for limited times due to work).

Equipment:

We now have all our kites and boards. We need to collect the gin shorts from Pat and also get some knives. Martin agreed that he would do this.

Spares - There was a lengthy discussion about spare equipment. It was agreed that we should look at getting some spare equipment.

Action: Fraser/Martin/Stuart - Look into getting a couple of spare boards and a couple of spare kites (one 15 and one 12?)

Nutrition: There was a discussion about energy gels and drinks etc.

Action: Nick to get some Gels of Patty.

Flares and EPIRBS (SPOTS) were agreed as additional safety equipment. It was agreed that mobile phones would not be any good.

Action: Fraser/Martin to organise flares and hire of the SPOTS equipment.

Martin stated that the radios are on their way and should be here before the weekend.

Sponsors/Video/Website:

Banners are required for some of the sponsors for the website.

Action: Ed/Jonny/Lyndsey/Fraser/Stuart to provide logos for Fivefingers/Garmin/Wright Walker Productions

Action: Nick to add information about Ventures West, Maryport inshore lifeboat and Cumbrian Fisheries.

It was agree that a redit of the promo video should be done to give a more prominent view of Gin and North because it was shot before we had the sponsorship. It was also agreed that some of the better long distance shots where the kites are not recognisable anyway could stay in and that a total rework of the video was not required.

Ed stated that he needs the logos for all the sponsors and a sample of the helmet cam footage from the GoPro helmet cam.

Action: Nick/Fraser to send Ed/Jonny the logos and sample video and provide a list of the current sponsors.

The meeting agreed to get the riders together on Friday (14/08/09) afternoon to meet up with the fisheries boat and take some more footage.

Site update and Meetings

2009-08-11T14:40:00.000-07:00

I've updated the site with more sponsor information. I've also updated the site with some of the rider profiles for Fraser, Martin and I. More will be added as time allows and I learn more efficient ways to update the site as I get to grips with concrete 5. Not a bad CMS but nowhere near as good as Joomla, I decided to use it to learn something new. That was a mistake, its nowhere near as configurable and the add-ons are extremely limited and your have to pay for most of them! Anyway I digress.....

We are having a meeting tommorow night (Wednesday 12th August) at the Howgate hotel. We are going to discuss detailed logistics, safety issues and equipment. We have some new radios coming and also potentially the new Go Pro HD helmet cam. I'm really looking forward to getting my hand on one of those 1080p at 30fps and 720p at 60fps. Will be excellent for slowmo shots once I figure out Adobe Premiere and After Effects.

We are also hoping to have another training day on Friday.

Forecast is good for tommorow and friday so some more riding is on the cards. Lets hope its nuclear, not had any really big sessions in a while :-)

More training - More equipment testing

2009-08-10T12:57:00.000-07:00

We've been lucky enough to have more wind so we've been out training and testing more equipment. We've recieved our shipment of 15m Nazca II's from Gin and have had some light wind days to test them. I'm quite impressed with the performance for such a big kite, its faster turning that any 15m I've tried and like the others in the range has plenty of depower. I'm thinking that this will be my kite of choice for the trip unless the wind is forecast to get really strong. I'd prefer to be really powered for the trip to keep the speed up and also so I don't have to work the kite and thus expend unecessary energy. If the forecast is less than say 25mph then I'll be going on this, if it does drop then I'll have more power. I reckon it'll be safe up to in excess of 35mph for the 85-90kg riders (most of us!).

We been doing some flat water riding at a new location for a change and covered a fair few miles. 25m (1hr 30m) in one session and 15m in another (1hr). Its suprising how much distance you cover in a session. Maximum speed on the sessions was about 25mph, highest average speed 15mph. This means that in theory the crossing will take us 6 hours, probably closer to 8hrs. Its going to be tough, but if the wind is with us and the sea state is reasonable we should be able to do it quicker. Unfortuantely its going to be a bit of a lottery!

Bring it on.

Training and GPS testing.

2009-08-02T14:04:00.000-07:00

We've been doing at lot of kitesurfing lately as the wind has been with us. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of days we've not been kitesurfing in the last month. We've also been testing the Garmin Foretrex GPS. It's a good piece of kit, great battery life and Garmin were kind enough to give us the cables and interface software to link it to the PC. The image to the left shows the GPS track from our latest training run from Silecroft to St Bees, however we didn't quite get there due to some problems on the way.

Martin and I set off on the train from St Bees to Silecroft and were met with Patty one of the kiters from Haverigg who took us to the beach. We set off in fairly light winds thinking it was possibly not going to be windy enough. How wrong we were. Patty blew one of his bindings so Beccy had to pick him up from Bootle and Martin and I had to stop at Sellafield and get picked up as we had a bit of a kitemare and by the time we got it sorted the wind was gusting up to 45mph and it was getting dark so we decided to call it a day. We'd covered 27 miles.

We'll be having another crack at the run when conditions allow. There are certainly some lessons to be learned from this one! We also had a session up at Anthorn where we covered 25 miles. Flat water was cool with some decent speeds, even though the wind was up and down.

Forecast is good for the rest of the week so more kiting to be had.

Evening News and Star Article.

2009-07-18T16:47:00.000-07:00

Another class session today at Workington.

We also have a middle page article in Saturdays local paper The Evening News and Star. Great article. Check it out here.

More wind forecast so more kiting to be done. Didn't get the chance to test out the Garmin Foretrex today as I was rushing to get into the water and left it in the kitebag. Tommorow hopefully.

Meeting Friday 17th July

2009-07-16T15:09:00.000-07:00

We are having a get together on Friday 16th July at Allonby. It will be a kiting session followed by a meeting to discuss lessons learned from the Haggis run and further plans.

The wind forecast for the next 4 days is superb with strong winds on the cards. Its going to be epic!

Stuart has also just recieved the Garmin Foretrex 101 handheld GPS systems. I've been in contact with the tech guys at Garmin to get a cable and software to allow us to upload and download data from the device. Hopefully we'll get that sorted also.

Thanks to Garmin for providing us with the Foretrex.

The Haggis Run

2009-07-16T08:15:00.000-07:00

On Sunday the 12th 14 of us crossed from Allonby Bay to Southerness point in Scotland. For some of us it was the first time flying the new Gin Nazca II kites and riding the new North Bullet boards.

It was a really tough trip, however it went pretty smoothly and took around 2 hours all told. The sea state was not good, hence our slow progress, however almost everyone made it.

Tarifa - Testing New Kit

2009-07-07T04:27:00.000-07:00

Martin, Mark, Patty and I just got back from Tarifa after 5 days of perfect wind and sun. We tested the new Gin Nazca II 12m and 8m and the North Bullet boards in anger. We've came to the conclusion that the massive wind range and upwind performance of the kites is perfect for the crossing. The boards are also excellent, comfortable, handle the chop well, are very fast and go upwind like a bullet (pun intended).

As far as the kiting equipment goes for the trip we have what is probably the perfect combination!