Dom’s kiting pages

Oh man, what an afternoon. The following experience highlights very clearly the widening chasm of quality of service between ‘the little guy’ independents and ‘the big guy’ corporate chain stores. As you all know, the little guy is being swallowed up because his prices are too expensive and he is not efficient enough; the growing cancer of chain stores devours the independents and replaces them with plastic, bland box movers where once we had retailers.

Anyway, I had two chores to do this afternoon. One, to get a guitar set up and another fixed, for which I needed to find a guitar tech. The second, to buy one of those tiny laptops with roving broadband from Curry’s.

On the way to Curry’s, I spotted a custom axe in a bong shop and noticed a business card that read ‘Neil Allen Guitar Technician’. Brilliant. I wandered inside, impressed with the cornucopia of pipes, tobacco, bongs, but mostly pipes and tobacco of the regular kind. This shop was in tip top order, neat, super clean, all the bright work gleaming. Behind the counter stood a hippy looking dude who looked like he’d seen the best and worst of the ’60’s, and I asked him for a business card for the guitar tech. ‘Certainly!’ he replied brightly, and fetched a card and came round the front of the counter, hand extended in greeting. ‘I’m Neil, the guitar tech’. Brilliant!! I explained what I needed doing, arranged a time to meet, gave my name and off I toddled, the task nicely in hand.

Next, into Curry’s. Bit grubby, loud, bright, horrible RnB music on rotation and some pretty disinterested or maybe just stressed out staff. I managed to catch the eye of one without inconveniencing her too much and asked for info on the laptop I wanted to buy; between stifled yawns she got the basics accross and gave me some printed sheets to read. No demo, no closer look, nothing. I thought, well, I need this, so I’ll go for it anyway. Couldn’t attract the girl’s attention a second time, so went with the male assistant. Started off OK, but after an entire hour of piddling about, he announces that the number he needed to configure the computer to the T Mobile sim was missing. That’s an entire hour looking at the bottom of a laptop before reaching that conclusion. They cannot sell me the laptop. Now, the store is closed, but the Truro store is open and they have stock, and once again we are making progress. I’ll hand it to the guy, he offered to drive to Truro to pick the laptop up so I could collect it in store tomorrow. We were just about to finalise the sale when the store manager, standing at another terminal, announces that the ’server is now down, no more sales’. So that put the kaibosh on that then, we couldn’t complete my sale - the entire hour wasted, now I have to go back and repeat the whole application process again. Fucking idiots.

Not everyone, but a lot of people in these big chains really just don’t give a shit. The customer to them is an annoyance without whom every worker would be so much better off. The staff are totally unwilling to think laterally or to yield a little to make your experience any less unpleasant. They delight on reciting ‘company policy’ just to make your life fucking difficult. You find yourself looking at these people and wondering what exactly is going on in their lives; what are they spending their wages on? Does it make them happy? If one’s life is a business, is it worth them carrying on trading as it were?

There’s so much wrong there and this blog only has a capacity of 100mb so I’ll wrap it up now. All this has reinforced my opinion that it’s the quality of service and experience that you remember long, long after the £10 or £20 you’ve saved. All of this stuff is consumer junk we can live without anyway, and all you really do with your money is spend it on consumer junk so effectively that makes most of your money totally worthless. So if we have to spend it, how much we spend isn’t an issue, what is is how much of our lives we are wasting standing in lines under flourescent strip lights waiting to pay for it. Put me in the bong shop anyday.

Corporate retail is shit; Hippies are good shopkeepers

The KKC, or Kernow Kitesurf Club are holding their launch demo day at Marazion Beach, Cornwall, on Sunday 12th July. This is a chance for anyone interested in kitesurfing, or who already kitesurfs and wants to mix it up with other riders in Cornwall to get in on the special clinics and check out the newest kit from F One, North, Cabrinha, Eclipse, Ocean Rodeo and Peter Lynn and no doubt loads of others.

 Clinics running on the day will include: intermediate and advanced freestyle, waves, and a special woman’s clinic. As well as this, there’ll be an opportunity to join the KKC as chief chairman Lee Pasty Harvey will be vending memberships from underneath the St. Piran’s gazebo.

Also, Loz from Ocean High kite school will be bringing over his awesome Zap Cat plus there’ll be SUPs and stuff like that, so in the case that there is bugger all wind about, there’s gonna be loads to get your mitts on. Finally, a smoking BBQ will be tended by the finest chefs in the KKC to stave of your hangover hunger pangs and keep your energy levels brimming.

 Check out the KKC for more info.

Ailing airline BA are reallyh up against it at the mo, and are asking some of their staff to turn in a month’s work for no pay. BA hopes this saving will coast the company through the lean patch. I can’t see many kitesurfers, surfers or windsurfers having any sympathy with British Airways since last year they announced that they would no longer be taking kitesurfing, surfing or windsurfing equipment as they had to make ‘tough decisions’ to ensure the smooth running of their automated baggage handling system.

They of course still take gold clubs, bicycles and hang gliders and other unwieldy objects but elected to snub kitesurfers, surfers and windsurfers because, well, ‘nothing personal’ they told us, ‘but someone just had to go’.

 Ruthless buggers aren’t they, this BA lot? You can imagine being the employee that can’t afford to say ‘yes’ to working for free…how secure would you feel about your future at the company?

The sooner British Airways goes bust the better. It’s a crack head scheme, them asking their workers to come to work for nowt, and the sooner BA disappears down the council gritter the less likely it is that other ‘ailing’ companies will follow suit. The last thing we need right now is a culture of guilt where poor workers are expected to turn up to their dreary exploitative jobs for free so that they can save the fat cats at the top.

British Airways; kitesurfer luggage; working for free;

gwithian-beach-restrictions.pdf - Click me!

Got this through from Loz at Ocean High Kitesurfing School and Kernow Kitesurf Club, it’s a map to show the summertime kitesurfing and power kiting restrictions that apply during the summer at Gwithian from 11th July to 7th September between 10am and 6pm.

It also applies to windsurfers, blokarts and horses so don’t feel victimised, and to be honest it’s so busy up that end (and it doesn’t work well on a northerly sea breeze) that you’re much better off on the huge swathe of sand to the south of the restricted zone.

Cornwall kitesurfing restrictions., Gwithian, Summer time restrictions

Crikey that was a close one! I’ve literally just uploaded the last of the files to the FTP. The last few days have passed in a weird sort of slow motion, like an extended car crash. A concertina rush of effort that leaves the nerves jangling with coffee and adrenaline.

Part of the blame can be apportioned to assembling flat pack furniture. I had three bunks to make up from Trago Mills; I think they are the same ones that the Navy Seals use for endurance training for their recruits. That is they make them assemble the buggers, not sleep in them.

Right, so I guess this is the part where we write the spiel that makes you want to go and read the mag. Here goes:

Duuuudes! This issue of Kitesurf Magazine is practically bulging at the flies with an awesome sausage fest straight from Zaafarana Egypt and then we pack our shit up and jet off over to sunny Cabarete where the water’s warm and the beer is cold! Holla! And then, we’re like off to somewhere else with loads of young dudes with their shorts too low and stuff like that, it’s awesome! We’re flying man! And then, we’re laying all our kit out on the lawn and telling you what’s on our iPod (I’m listening to MGMT - they suck big balls!) and taking a photo of it all and putting that in the mag! Next, there’s a killer fish eye shot of some duuuudes tricked out van and he’s god a bed in it and everything. Man it’s just so fresh!

 Now let’s try it the Kitesurf way:

In the coming mag, you’ll be able to sit on the toilet until your legs go numb and you still won’t have even dented the Word Up section. The mag is stocky and thick, so if you rolled it up tight it’ll make a very useful stealth clubbing device. You can also leave it on the dashboard of your van as a deterrent to thieves who will rightly percieve that as a KS reader, you’re on your arse financially and have nothing worth knicking and your van will smell of rubber and piddle.

Puts a lump in your throat doesn’t it!

Kitesurf Magazine; Deadline; Flat Pack Furniture

Remember when the F One skate was the cutting edge shape in the twin tip world? Sure you do! I spotted this round a mate’s house and was surprised at how drawn in and sleek looking the tips were compared to boards nowadays. It makes you want to get out and ride it, surf it, jump with it…

I always thought it was the fault of the high depower kite getting dull that forced people into picking up wave boards and hitting the surf. Now, I’m wondering if the squarer, wider freestyle orientated design of today’s mundane twin tip isn’t also part of the reason: wakestyle boards are not fun in the surf.

 Anyway, it’s a beauty isn’t it?

F One Skate; kitesurfing musings

I just got in to find that I had about 30 postmaster@cantdeliver.bollox emails in my inbox. A sleazy dirty bunch of funkers behind something called Kanicn dot com - I won’t put those a***holes’ link up here - spammed everyone in my inbox with a load of cobblers about one of their trashy shops where you must visit and blah blah blah…

 So I got hacked, big deal, that I can handle. What I take massive offence to is some ****** sitting there thinking that he or she can just make a fast buck by peddling some cobblers ripoff ’shopping’ website - which I can assure you will bill you for goods, but they will not send. We get shite thrown at us from all angles and then this slime ball comes along and tries his luck at ripping a few more gullible folk off. Chuffin hell, what happened to the good old days when dodgy people pulled up outside a pub in an XR3i selling snide Ralph Laurens? At least you know where you stood, right?!

Anyway, just wanted to make my feelings known on this one; people who want to make a fast buck at others expenses, people who try to take short cuts in life, people who don’t want to graft to deliver a product that pleases people -let it be known your souls will be judged, slowly, in PURGATORY. It’s your choice ya bleeping bleeps!

The other day, we were scouring the lost Roseland Peninsula looking for some east wind and a white sand beach with crystal blue water. We found the beach, and on the way, top lens Tony Plant suddenly says, just as we are rumbling down a quite, sunny, backcountry lane, “Aren’t you going to stop and pick up the purple chair?” I replied, “What?” or something like that. “Yes, they’re giving away a purple chair for free”. I reversed, and sure enough was the lushest purple velvet chair I had ever seen. We soon hefted it into the car and from that moment on, well what can I say other than that we had a chair in the back.

Roseland didn’t do liver so well but the next day, at Hawker’s Cove, it was ON!! Probably one of the best sessions I’d had in Cornwall on flat water; what made it so special was that the wind was almost pure East. I never knew this place worked so well in such conditions.

 I was testing the Nobile T5 , the new Ion 4, and a few light wind boards. I was impressed to see how well these 12m kites kite looped, I was just lost for hours in the shallow, warm, clear lagoons switching between kites, boards, unhooking and hooking in. Bliss.

The next day, we headed back, Will Bennet, Celine Collaud, Alex Brown, Nige and I. The wind was a little lighter, but we took the throne along and Bennet and Celine took turns in either tail tapping it, knocking it over, or grinding a board as someone else was sat in the throne.

 From now on, if it’s a flat water session, the throne gets packed first.

cornwall, Hawker's Cove, Ion 4, Light wind boards., Nobile T5, Surf Twisted, The Throne, Tony Plant

Old Crantock Beach is a notoriously fickle place to kitesurf. It is a good high tide spot in comparison to what is on offer in the local area, but you do need to be minute perfect with the tides. Today, high tide was at 1930, but, it keeps rattling in hard until a little later than that. Usually, when it comes to high water, the tide really slackens off as the beach fills up. However, at Crantock, in a smaller scale version of what happens at The Duck Pond in Exmouth, there is a huge expanse of drying estuary inland of the beach that the water must fill up. So, even at high tide, the water won’t have reached all the way to the back of the estuary area. The result as far as kitesurfers are concerned, is that if feels like the tide is still rushing in, and your kite doesn’t feel as powered.

The real joy comes when the tide starts ebbing, as the effect is dramatically reversed; however this is when the sea state can become very agitated in the river mouth due to the wind over tide effect. Amongst all this, there tends to be an hour when it all works quite nicely though, so it pays to perservere.

This evening we hit it just right. Normally one finds it can be difficult to be on time for anything, much less early what with the way modern life is so hectic with pressure coming at you from all angles, but by arriving as the tide was still rattling in we were on it. I was able to get out for my first session on the amazingly monickered JN Mr. Fantastic kite. It’s a 10m Deltoid shape and a full review will appear in the next issue of KS Mag.

Crantock Beach Kitesurf; Estuary Kitesurf; Kitesurfing

Celine Collaud is a lovely Swiss kitesurfer (now resides in Egypt) who is going out with me mate Will, a scruffy Cornish kitesurfer (now resides in St Mawgan). Today, we all met up at the flat-water-sometimes-pointbreak Mecca that is Daymer Bay, near Wadebridge. Wind was about 18knots, nice and flat with a bit of chop building as the tide pushed in. This is because the sheltering effect of the Doom Bar is overcome when it is once more covered by water.

 I grabbed some shots of the crew experimenting and doing various stunts in the shallow water; Will with his handplants and Shawn Richman inspired twizzles. Celine meanwhile was putting in one of the most energetic freeride sessions that D-Bay has probably seen, packing an untold number of tricks - and hard crashes - into about 20 minutes of riding. Just goes to show what a year on the KPWT Tour will do for your commitment levels.

I went out for a blast later on the Slingshot RPM, this time with the twin tip rather than the course race board that I used on the first flight with that kite. Initial impressions are that this 12m is very quick and light, and it’s a great kite to chuck around wherever you want. The lift is also very easy to access and I was soon enjoying some crash landings of my own, all in about 3 inches of water. Oof. Full review in the July / August issue of KS Mag.

Celine Coullard, Daymer Bay, Flat water freeride session, Will Bennet