HERE IT IS "FINALLY"........A VIDEO...you get to see ME.....Michel (with his lines always on )

This was filmed by my awesome wife last Friday afternoon Dec 7th 4:30pm at our 5th street beach

Continuous filming..all in one take..in real time...i hope you have a 5 minute attention span to watch

Wind on the beach was 8-9 knots from the NNE....our beach faces nearly directly East 90 degrees

We are having a warm December and the water temperature is 70 degrees and air temp 80

Jumped and rode lots of waves..the wind picked up to 10-11 kn just before the pink -orange sunset

I am "very blessed" to live nearby such a beach and be able to squeeze short sessions after work

Our sunset is at 5:27pm

I hope you enjoy this second VIDEO gift to KF....Merry Xmas to ALL my fellow wind lovers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcN9QSBCMNc

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Very nice and looks easy.

Kite looked a bit underinflated?

If your wife had stood behind you for the actual launch it would have been perfect, but I understand you wanted it continuous and in a short time.

i know your wife loves filming you supa because you are so pretty, but she should have pointed the camera at the kite when it launched and not at you.

how does this launch method work in higher winds, say 30-40 knots.

I just want to know what video camera your wife was using. Either she is the most stable, non-shaky person to ever hold a video camera or she was on a track system in the sand because her filming was incredibly smooth.

image stabilisation software does pure magic

wow! you are folding your kite really thorough. i don't even fold my shirt like that.
no wonder they call me dr. house at the office....

I am using a little cheap Cannon waterproof camera. This was my first time shooting any video and we did it on one take. It does look a little Blair Witch Project when I am walking. Funny that you don't realize all the little things people are looking for until you try to post something. Thank you for the compliment! NJOY

Thanks...glad that you see how EZ it is...i only walk away 'once" from the kite....
.....and the kite never gets flipped LE down....
.....it remains in take-off position..and that makes it EZ to sort out lines (that are already attached)

The kite just "looks"that way because it has long thin leading edge...
... and the trailing edge points exactly in the direction of wind flow

Core suggests between 6 and 7 PSI...I always put 6 and the LE does not deform even in 18kn+++
Having the 5 struts must help to keep LE rigid at that pressure

Very good suggestion to have a view of the kite wingtip LE sliding....
..... from under the sandbag at take off

We will try to do short clip video of just that part in the near future

I can tell you that the leeward wing tip that is raised up goes up first ...
...and that i am at 45 degrees angle to the kite as a walk backwards to launch

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supaez I have a request next time you viddy this launch technique can you do it in 25 knots or more? Self land and self launches are all pretty easy when the wind is lite. It's when the wind is nuking that separate the bad from good self launches.

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Very nice video.

As to the actual technique:

1. I'm especially impressed with your use of the bag to latch the kite down rather than putting sand on the tip. I imagine that this eliminates some of the problems that can arise from having the entire weight on the tip.

2. However, it's worth noting that a 45 degree launch gets progressively hotter as the wind increases (and kite size decreases). Perhaps this is not a major problem for some kites if they have enough depower at the bar, but if not, it is possible to dragged hard.

I assume you used 45 degrees because the wind was too light to get the kite more upwind at launch. So my question is, does it work as well closer to the side of the window if there is enough wind or do you have problems with the bag not holding it enough? If that's the case, would 2 bags be better?

Thanks for any info.

Richard M.
Malibu Kitesurfing - since 2002
(310) - 430 - KITE (5483)
http://www.MalibuKitesurfing.NET
kfRichard@MalibuKitesurfing.NET