On Shore Wave Kites

[marlboroughman]

Doesn't matter what you call it. Everywhere I go the conditions happen to be that I ride down the wave with the wind in my back. For this kind of geometry I like the kite that flies back in the window and delivers smooth power in the turns. Flying back in the window doesn't mean bad upwind. Anybody who tried Catalyst <2015 or E5 knows it. With these kites you can go downwind, down the wave and have them flying in front of you, ready for whatever you want to do with them. Kites that go far upwind in the wind window will want to stay behind you and become unresponsive. The other thing that I like about back (deep) flying kites is the support they give you when you are trying to get out from the brake zone. Even if you are slogging underpowered they keep you balanced and you can generate power from the turns, and they'r always hugging close to the power zone. I will always be in the market for these kind of kites in 7-9m size. Naish Dash looks promising on paper but they don't say where the kite sits in the wind window. FX looked promising on paper but it sucks in reality in onshore waves. Flies too much upwind and creates too much power in the turns via somewhat heavy bar pressure. Nice aggressive kite but not for waves especially strapless.

[Peter_Frank]

But it does....

Totally related

Sitting deep means bad upwind, no discussion about that

PF

[marlboroughman]

I never tried Kahoona's but <2015 Catalyst and E5 are not grunty and they take you upwind almost as good as Edge and Nitro respectively.

[knotwindy]

Have you ridden the newer version of the Catalyst? The Enduro V2? How’s that work?

[marlboroughman]

Enduro's are OK

[mede]

My take on things (confirming what some of you already said):

* To have fun, at least a couple of degrees side here and there are a must, fully completely on does not cut it for me.

Kite:
* Fast
* very quick-turning, with defined feedback
* Must fly upwind very well
* Must drift nicely and with stability for quite some time without bar imput (Don't confuse this with "sitting back in window", has nothing to do)

At the same time, let's not forget the board...

Board:
* Very fast acceleration (to escape typically irregular close-outs)
* Must have great upwind capabilities (otherwise too much work getting upwind all the time)
* Must be able to handle steep take-offs without burying nose

[marlboroughman]

I am ready to sacrifice a little upwind with boards too. As I said before I don't like kites designed for Hawaii, but I love pure surf (Hawaiian) board shapes for onshore. I like surf tail, rails and high rocker for tight bottom turn. In onshore, the waves are close together so you have little space to work with. The board has to turn on a dime.

[marlboroughman]

Why upwindability is not first on my list in onshore? The best waves are close to shore so if you ride them you will end up on shore. So HTF? I pick the place that will be 45-75 deg onshore, I ride the waves to shore and come back in shallow flat water along the beach right to where I started. Problem solved.

[Peter_Frank]

My take on things (confirming what some of you already said):

* To have fun, at least a couple of degrees side here and there are a must, fully completely on does not cut it for me.

Kite:
* Fast
* very quick-turning, with defined feedback
* Must fly upwind very well
* Must drift nicely and with stability for quite some time without bar imput (Don't confuse this with "sitting back in window", has nothing to do)

At the same time, let's not forget the board...

Board:
* Very fast acceleration (to escape typically irregular close-outs)
* Must have great upwind capabilities (otherwise too much work getting upwind all the time)
* Must be able to handle steep take-offs without burying nose

Spot on and very precise, this is the gear that works the best for more onshore waveriding

For sideshore conditions you can almost use whatever you like personally, as long as it drifts okay, and a lot easier as you don't need the forward flying/upwind ability now, but can go vertical easy, with any kite.
In sideshore you can also use a banana board, does not work in onshore where you need more glide as the wave can not support you on the last part of the bottom turn, where you pinch up into the wind and wave, thus more glide and forward flying needed, to go more vertical with speed in the cutback.

Peter

[Slappysan]

But the waves you get in onshore conditions are piecemeal crappy waves and due to the onshore wind you are limited to a few shitty turns before having to carve out and stop the kite from slack lining,

You then ride cross shore and cross off and instantly can sustain extended down the line riding many times better than onshore mush. Sure you can ride the mush. But thats what it is mush. When i am ridding mush i dont even consider it wave riding, Nor do i try to wave ride the crud.

While I agree that windswell produces mushy waves in general, they can be quite powerful and very real waves with decently clean faces.

You are not limited to a few shitty turns in onshore wave riding, unless you are actually riding a break that is perpendicular to the wind. You have to remember when we use these terms to talk about waves (onshore, offshore, side/on, side/off) they mean nothing about the direction of the shore. They are the direction of the wind relative to the wave.

My 3 main spots are are all onshore windswell that gets up to head high. At all of them the waves break on sandbars that are at a 45 degree angle to the wind + wave direction. This allows you to go 300m downwind on a breaking wave while riding onshore wind.