i am new to the sport of kite surfing i do ride the wake board often . my question is what kite to buy im looking on ebay seems to be some good deals there most of my surfing will be on lake texoma , north texas wind normaly 5-20 mph im about 200 lbs ofcourse ill fly on land for a while to learn the kite but for my weight i cant catch massive air behind a boat so i thought i will try a kite . any and all help will be useful
thanks
eddie

If you can take a lesson it will be the best way to go. I suspect that with one lesson you will have the skills to start working on the board and it sounds like that will come easy. After the lesson you will have a better idea of what kite to buy for your area and such.

start thinking Flysurfer.... expensive yes, but cuts the learning curve by 1/2 just because the kites do what they are supposed to do .... no surprises and no fussing, so you can pay more attention to balance etc..

cool thanks

If you don't mind making the windrange more like 12-25mph, instead of 5-20, you can do fairly well with a PL Arc, there's a number of them going for fairly cheap in the buy sell area. They're super stable and easy to fly, make good power and get good lift/float. Only drawbacks are poor low wind performance and a bit of a pain to learn the launch. Plus side, once in the air, it probably won't touch the ground until the sessions over, the autozenith works awesome.

Just wondering would an NPW be a decent water kite? like would it sink if i crashed it? If so could i use a boogie board with fins and footstraps? (i've tried it before but I'm not sure if its safe) the board had some directional control because of the fins and the straps kept me on the board without sliding. but it was hard starting as the board wont float me completly

While people do kite with foils that will sink, best to learn on something water relaunch able, then it's possible to go to open foils if you're after say more low wind performance. NPW's will not water relaunch. Lots of cheap tubes for sale if you dig around.

Standard reply though would be get a small foil. For your size, I'd be looking at a 3-4m Buster, Beamer or Radsail. They're all good kites that will last for years before you outgrow them on land. Learn the basics of kiteflying with them on the beach. Then you have something for your friends to try as well, then track down some lessons if possible, then kitesurf gear.

If you decide to stay surf only there's a pretty good resale on those kites as well, so it doesn't really cost that much compared to the time saved with lessons by already knowing how to fly a foil.

What if i put like inflatable bladders on the kite like some tube shaped inflatable camp pillows i have?:singing:

Or you could keep your eyes peeled for a deal, someone just sold a C-kite for $75 up this way, good shape too, just a couple years old. Lots going in the $200-300 range, some complete RTF.

There's just too many things to go wrong while learning on the water to want to mess around with unproven gear. Land is a lot more forgiving.


I just had a minor incident last week that made me thankful for quality gear, wind was 15mph cross/onshore, switched to 30+mph cross offshore in about a minute. Extremely gusty turbulent winds to boot. I was out on my 16m Scorpion and over 1/2 mile off shore when this happened. Still managed to drag back to my board, ride the heavy gusts and rotors out, on a lull, threw my board on my feet, kept the kite low and to the side and slowly worked my way back to shore. About a mile down the beach, but back to shore.

Once again, I was glad to be flying what I was, I'm sure the FS stuff or a good tube wold have worked equally well but I wouldn't want to count on something I've made in that situation.

I was just kinda looking at doing it in the bay at my aunts house when i go out there. Just staying within like 20 feet of shore.

Well, life jacket, harness, foil. Just don't go far from shore, if you do it right you can easily stay upwind without a boat/board, good practice as well. I've headed out this way lots of times with an open cell foil, just be sure there's no weird currents and you stay in onshore or cross/onshore winds. Worst case you sit for 1/2 hr with the kite in the sun drying. Wicked way to cool down on a hot sunny day. You need a harness because you need on hand free to get into the proper upwind body dragging position. Or BF buggy, work your way up the beach, then float downwind in the water for a bit.

Yeah well i do have a homemade harness but i never had any luck with my npw on a bar (the controls were backwards) so pulling it put tension on the brakes:o

I was body dragging with handles, when you put a fixed bridal kite on a bar, the brake lines go to the center and the steering to the bar ends, you don't get depower, use a fixed power loop and fly it off the main lines with no brake tension.

Do a search for Cross over Bar on here, they work great for larger fixed power foils.

Hey Eddie,

I would take some lessons first....
Your instructor will provide you the right gear for your first day on a kite.
Do not buy a kite made before 2005.... A bow kite would be the right choice.
It's safer than a Cshape and you will probably learn quicker with it.
The wind range of this type of kite is also better than any Inflatable Cshape (I'm not talking about hybrid kite).
best kiteboarding has some pretty good deals right now on 2007 gear.
The Best Waroo is an excellent kite... and you can get almost anywhere some great deal on used 2006 product.
For your size and the wind range (8/18kts) I would suggest you to get a 17M with a big board (Spleene door)
And as a beginer do not ride a foil on the water
first you will have to learn how to relaunch your kite off the water (you wont learn that with a foil...)

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