By G. PATRICK PAWLING
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to fly, there are a lot of options. An intensive On The Water investigation, which involved hanging out on the beach Saturday, reveals that kites are moving up the list, and fast.
We're talking big kites. Huge kites. Kites so freaking powerful they'll lift a 200-pound man 40 feet into the air - and sometimes 80, rumor has it. Kites that'll drag a person like a bull will pull a snagged rider: mercilessly. Kites that'll turn around and bite you in the behind, metaphorically speaking, faster than probably anything else you've tried, if you don't know what you're doing.
And man does it look cool. This thing, it's called kiteboarding. You take a kite that's bigger than anything you've ever seen, except maybe for the Goodyear blimp or George Bush's ego or the line on the Parkway on a busy summer weekend, and you attach four 100-foot strings to it. At the end of those lines is a person holding on very tightly - a person riding a surfbord, basically, or maybe a wakeboard. When things are going well this person gets pulled across the water very fast because, you see, these kites generate a whole lot of power in even light wind. At any given moment this person might then launch a huge jump or multiple spins or a roll or three if things are going well.
On Saturday it looked pretty easy, but that's because there were some very good kiteboarders on the beach in Ocean City. They were there for a contest, the first one held in Ocean City, and it was a gas because it was about as low-key and friendly as a competition can get. The judging criteria? Well if it looks good score it higher. The start time? ... Ummm, let's see when the wind picks up. The idea, said organizer Dave Loop of H2Air Marketing, was to give East Coast kiteboarders an excuse to get together and to put a spotlight on a sport that's still in that "what the heck is that?" stage.
What's hip about kiteboarding is that you get a whole lot of adrenaline right from the get-go. The moment you get that bar in your hands, the one attached to those four lines, you know you're holding something real powerful and fairly scary.
It's like a horse. If you can keep it under control it's a beautiful thing. But if it gets away from you, you are going to be punished. But the thing is, some of the people in this contest haven't been doing it all that long - a year or so in some cases - and are doing phenomenally wild things already! This is very much unlike windsurfing, for example, which has a longer learning curve, or surfing, which can be cruel to learn, in my humiliated opinion.
"It's so much easier than most people think," said Loop. "I know a guy, he's 65 years old, and he's going off. He took his time learning but now he's doing great."
Mike Scribner, a West Chester, Pa., resident who came down for the contest, used to like windsurfing a lot. Used to.
"I can't even touch a (windsurfing) board now," said Scribner. "Once you learn how to control the kite the airtime is unreal."
Scribner still likes wakeboarding, "but compared to kiting nothing comes close the energy of windsurfing - multiply that by 10. When you're looking down at guys windsurfing, talking to them from above I'm telling you, kiting is beautiful. You almost get hypnotized by that thing. It's almost like an animal. In the beginning it's totally whacked. Hawaii was like crazy. I was getting yanked around like a little girl. But you've got to love it every time you kite your mouth gets dry the adrenaline rush is incredible."
We're in a good spot here in southern New Jersey. The bays, and even the wider, more unpopulated beaches, are conducive to quick learning - and it shows from the progress the locals are making, several of whom entered the contest. The Ocean City contingent was strong and included Charlie Bowman, along with Mark Miedama and Kip Murray. But it was evident that the folks from Florida and Long Island and Hatteras have been at it longer, because they were absolutely killing it, as the surfers say, throwing all kinds of whirling things. And they were doing it in very light wind, barely enough to run the contest and barely enough to jump. But even in the light conditions Saturday, civilians who were standing on the beach couldn't believe what they were watching.
And the riders are just as charged.
"It's a new sport so it's a new adrenaline rush for me," said Bowman.
Is it difficult?
"I don't think it's that hard to learn," he said.
Is it dangerous?
"Yes it is."
"It's a lot like snowboarding," said Miedama. "When you start you pay dearly. And then all of a sudden you've got it."
If sounds like a very sane statement, well, it is. But don't kid yourself. Kiteboarding is never going to replace knitting. It attracts a high-altitude crowd, the kind that needs adrenaline by the bucket. Kiteboarders are coming from surfing and wakeboarding and windsurfing and snowboarding, mostly, with some converts who had been into flying stunt kites. What brings them is the air these kites let you get - twisty air, stupid air, scary air, the kind of jumps that have prompted concerns - and this is the truth - about high-flying kiteboarders getting in the way of airplanes going in and out of an airfield just off the beach in Maui. And if that makes you smile, you're probably a candidate.
"It's a very sane sport," said Robbie Guimond, who came down for the contest from Long Island, N.Y. "The only time it gets dangerous is if you make it dangerous."
So I'm buying one. I'll issue a report toward the end of the summer, which will basically list how many miles I've been pulled underwater and over the beach. Meanwhile I understand there's a pool forming, something about how long it'll take me to wind up in the emergency room.
(The competition continues today with a "big air" contest, but with the wind direction changing it was unclear where it might be held. To find out about that, or anything else about kiteboarding, call Extreme Windsurfing at (609) 641-4445. For future contest information and more kite information go to www.h2air.com.)
(The semi-official results from Saturday's competition:
1) A semi-identified Long Island guy who calls himself "Skatoor."
2) Dimitri Maramenides, Cape Hatteras.
3) Neil Hutchinson, Florida.
4) Dan Johnson, a semi-local hotshot rider from West Chester, Pa.)
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