I appreciate the tradition, but the beaufort scale is about as useless as my slanted pump base idea. It is dated and not very useful when wind speeds can be reported in m/s ,mph, or even knot.

I'm intrigued by the irony that there are countries that had enough foresight to adopt the metric scale, but still refer to wind speeds using BFT's.

Agreed. It is useless.
But, wait.......... a SLANTED pump base??? That's brilliant!!

We use furlongs per fortnight.

To be fair the beaufort scale is a measure of wind force.

knots, mph, kph, m/s all measuring speed.

Wind speed is only one portion of the triangle of air velocity, pressure and density.

Every wonder why 20 knots in winter feels more grunty than 20 knots in summer? Well its because the density of the air is more because the temperature is considerably less. Increase the air density will increase the force applied to the kite.

So... wind speed readings do not take into account any increase/decrease in force due to changing temperature/pressure. Beaufort scale does and therefore can be more accurate.

+ 1 for what --plummet-- said !

I can fly my HG in 35-40 mph in the Vegas aria at summer, but NOT on a 300ft cliff
at the coast. On the coast i wouldn't use the same glider in over a 30mph.

The coast is at sea-level, making the air-density Higher than the 2700ft where i live.
The coast is Cooler than the desert in summer, also making the air more dense.

Bille

I beg to differ... I think wind speed is less use full than beaufort scale. The too together make a great tool though. The beaufort scale tries to relate what real life affect the winds have on people and the environment around them. Wind speed is just a number.

If someone tells you it's gonna be 40kts tomorrow you know it's gonna be windy but if they tell you it's gonna be beaufort 8 you know the following:

"Some twigs broken from trees. Cars veer on road. Progress on foot is seriously impeded."

So knowing it's beaufort 8 is more meaningful than knowing its 40kts... IMO.

yeah. and if you read 40 knots you automatically have a picture in your head of what that looks like. Whats that picture? the beaufort scale. ...... . .. .

Theses days i don't use a wind meter. I check the sorroundings and select a kite depending on my internal beaufort eyethometer. If there a guy at the beach with a wind meter i'll tell him within 1 to 2 knots what the wind speed is.

When WE measure the wind, we are actually assessing wind FORCE.

So arguing Beaufort vs Knots etc is moot. And it is irrelevant if we are measuring the wind in winter vs summer.

It is true that wind moving across the ground at 20 knots is denser in winter vs summer and therefore imparts more force. But we NEVER measure velocity across the ground. We measure the FORCE the wind imparts on the impellers of our measuring devices. Or we assess the wind strength by watching the force the wind imparts on trees, whitecaps, or other riders.

The Beaufort scale is less useful than other measurement scales for kitesurfing because it was designed for old sailing ships. Kitesurfers don't care about Beaufort 0-3, because we don't ride in these conditions. 95% of us ride in Beaufort 5-7. Also, part of the problem relates to the scale itself: The scale was designed in 5 knot increments. But wind generally becomes much gustier at stronger strengths. It is very rare to have 30k wind locked into a 5 knot range. More often than not, it covers 2-3 Beaufort ranges.

I beg to differ. Most handheld windmeters measure the speed of the air. There is almost no resistance in the impellers, so it's rotating speed is determined by the speed of the air, not the force.

Beaufort for me .....the amount of people who rig the wrong sized kite by trusting the windmeter over the prevailing conditions.