Edge hard - ?

[Guest]

Hi,
I'm working on getting up on the board, and when I power it up I get up out of the water okay. However, very quickly I reach a point where I feel like I'm skimming too quickly atop the water, and end up doing a wonderful faceplant every time. I've tried digging in the backside of the board, which is what I thought people mean when they say 'edge hard', but I still hit the skids quickly. Useful suggestions, please? Thanks

[uipko]

depends a litle bit on the type of board you use. But edging means that you put the rail of the board at your heel side in the water.

With a directional you give more presure at the back of your board, with a twintip yu put almost the hole side of the board in the water.

At the same time you go as much upwind as possible. If you steer the kite low (3-6m above the water) you can give more presure on the rail.

Greetz Uipko

[Guest]

Indeed, that is what I thought - but when I try to put the whole side underwater (with my bidir board), it keeps coming out and chopping along the top. How can I avoid this and get the board deeper in the water while moving?

[Toby]

make sure you are not too fast.
If you are too fast, you can't edge.
Just be so fast that you can slide, then edge hard, if the kite wants you to slide faster, stop it by edging even more.
Then you will go upwind easily. Each time the kite pulls you and you can't edge, you loose a lot of height!

[edmis]

i learned to kitesurf on fat 180 TT and i finally learned how to control it in high wind and rough sea. you have to ride it like directional. move your weight to back as much as possible and edge with back half of the board. keep the front of board out of water. then you shorten the effective edge of the board and get a feeling you ride on a shorter board. i found out that when you ride correctly you must feel the load on your back leg.

edmis

[Johnny TBKS]

Edgeing hard can also be the term people choose when they are telling you to 'stomp' the kite. The idea is, if you edge hard/pull hard, the kite flies further FORWARD into the window. If you are ending up in a mad speed run, you probably have the kite parked for the most part, right in the middle of the powerzone. You have to stomp the kite(edge really hard) to get it to slide forward to the front edge of the window. Once it's there, you will find it MUCH easier to control the speed and the pull.

If you are starting out in decently high or pretty solid winds, learning to stomp the kite over to the edge of the window can take a lil time to master as you are probably still working on your board skills in general. IF higher winds is the case, try moving the kite a little towards the front of the window PRIOR to moving it down to get your initial pull up onto the plane. By starting it nearer the front edge of the window, you will have a much easier time getting it to that edge and keeping it there.

It will all come alot more naturally to you with time and practice. Keep pressing on!

Johnny

[Royce]

I think Toby is on the right path. Start with a 123 technique. 1 pull the kite from neutral just hard enough to get you up onto the board... 2 as soon as you are standing up pull the other way and get the kite moving upwards. This helps you stay up and speed up. 3 Then just pull the kite forward again to a 45' angle and edge the board. If it is very windy fporget 2 + 3 if its very light keep going 2+3+ edge. If you get going to fast on one or 2 just don't pull so hard. Happy sailling.

[murdoc]

stretch yor body to your full height, keep your back stiff and lean backwards.

start going downwind and slowly turn upwind when gliding.

if the board does like described, it's possible that it's not really a beginner-board.
try to borrow an easy to ride board to learn the twin tip technique. .. .