With daily updates that have been filled with dire weather predictions, I certainly expected today to be much of the same for today, and when I was first up and around today (at about 6am) it was looking like Thursday was shaping up to be pretty bad. It was pouring rain early this morning.
For me, it didn’t matter initially, as I was headed off to what is always an entertaining meeting, the Sport Kite Symposium, Sport kite flyers can make use of this forum to voice (sometimes loudly) just what is bothering them lately or, exciting them. Some of the topics broached included the change of invitation process (3 + alternates vs. inviting top 5), how to grow the numbers of actual competitors in general and the possibilities of having nearly instant scoring. My own personal beef got a little airtime, the scoring of 30/30/40 vs. 100 on precision and in a not terribly surprising quick poll amongst the members who made it out to the meeting (perhaps the busiest workshop/meeting of the week to that point) there was unanimous support with respect to not splitting off sport kite competition into it’s own separate event. But, to suggest the Symposium was the sole event of the morning would a little lopsided. Also presented were workshops on “How Many Sticks Does a Parafoil Have” and a longer workshop detailing how to build a fighter kite, put on by Steve Bateman.
Once we’d rolled around to 10:30, it was time to head down to the beach and start iQuad’s team flying workshop. Bedevilled by terrible winds at the start of the workshop, I can at least report that the weather itself was -easily- the nicest of the week. A beautiful sunny with nothing that looked like rain clouds in the sky. The workshop itself was very well attended and the following Quadapalooza time slot turned field 1 into essentially a quad day down on the beach. With Joe Hadzicki and Lee Sedgwick in attendance, we managed to get as many as 18 revs in the air though alas, we fell short of an idea midday of spelling AKA in the sky with revs. However, the main point was loud and clear, have fun flying quad and have even more fun flying quad with others. Judging by the laughter on the sidelines any time all 18 kites went awry, even the spectators had an entertaining time with both events. While we did come out 1 kite short with respect to a North American record for a quad team fly, I suspect we’ll have another opportunity on Saturday as we are convinced we can go past 18.
Also taking place at much the same time was the kitemaker’s judging. We managed to get a great selection of handmade kites captured on film (memory stick?), some of which will be in this update, others which will show up in a later Kitelife article. But, with the weather as great as it was, all the kites looked simply stunning in the sun. While I was down there I also managed to take in some great fighter kite flying as those attending Champions darted around the sky.
One event I also managed to utterly miss (hey, I was busy running Quadlapalooza)… After what turned into “All Quad, All Day” in the main field, everyone split for their own respective places for dinner, and to the evening’s flymart, featuring a wide selection of kites and related supplies from AKA merhcants. Both the Flymart and the Miniature Kite displays were held at the Convention Center, and with a plethora of pizza and a reasonably inexpensive bar, it was a very popular area to be!
Alas this evening we have no sport kite results to report on as there were no events run, however we will have some tomorrow as Masters Individual Ballet and the Team events will be run. Me? I’m off to bed to catch up on some dearly needed sleep, and dreams of more good weather tomorrow. Check back here this evening and we’ll reveal some more results. And, a special thanks from me to all the quad people who participated in the events today, we’re hoping you all managed to walk away with some new flying skills in the process. Tomorrow is welcome to Friday here so cross your fingers we’ll have as sunny of a day as we had today.
Thanks again, and see you soon!
David Hathaway