Ive been in Canada snowboarding since the start of December. I check back to seabreeze every so often to see what lm missing out on but whenever l check the Sydney graphs it looks pretty ordinary. Is Sydney having a bad season? Wheres the charts full of green arrowed Nor-easters. Am l missing out on anything? Last year was epic with 4-5 windy days a week

Rob you're missing nothing. After last years epic season this is the worst for seabreezes i can remember in 25+ years of sailing. I would have thought that when I broke my hand nearly 4 weeks ago the wind gods would mock me with a return of the n'easters, but no just a light one yesterday and some southerlies every other day.

la Nina rears it's wet, windless, ugly head. At least there's been surf.

Seabreeze forecast was 18-20kts between 5-8 am this morning at Sydney Airport. I got up at 5, checked the live winds and saw 18-26kts with stronger gusts. Figured id finally get a decent couple of hours in so I jumped in the car and drove the 55min it takes me to get to botany bay.

When I got to Dolls at just on first light at 0615 - hardly a breath of wind. I sat around for a bit and still nothing so went and had some breakie feeling jewed again. At 0745, wind started to pick up a bit, so I got gear out, pumped up the kite and got about 45min in on a random gusting wind which was impossible to stay upwind on. Then kite just fell out of sky - wind near stopped again.

After swimming in with kite, and 20 min untangling lines I started packing up. Another wasted 160km round trip and $15 bucks in tolls for nothing.

Very frustrating.

160km round trip.... $15 dollars tolls....? all to kite dolls point? ... dude, that's dedication, i feel sorry for you, i tell you though, i'm never gonna complain about walking down to the beach and setting up, only to have the arse fall out of the wind ever again.... it has been a rather shiiitty summer for wind, and never ever before have i seen so many no ideas out surfing, the human fashion sheep irritate me the most.....

Actually - I think I got the trip length a bit wrong. Its about 65km each way, so only 130km round trip

Still sux though when theres no wind......

I think I am going to have to change jobs so I can move closer to the beach.

I think all of Sydney's weather has come to Melbourne and been added to what we normally get. We are getting warm, grey, humid days and cockroaches in the kitchen.

We're up to day 3 in a row of winds up to 35 knots on the back of day after day after day of 20 knot winds.

Sometimes we don't go kiteboarding because we're all getting worn out from too much fun.

Fingers crossed Thursday, Friday and Sat are good in Sydney. Forecast has lots of green in it for a change !

Those cockies are from Adelaide

Yeah I'll have to have a day off today, even though there will be no wind because last night I got to kite for 2 hrs, and I'm just physically wrecked, glad I don't live in Melbourne.
It was a good SE'easter last night lots of patient people got their reward in the end.

I did see something strange in the distance last night looked like a Wipika classic so rode down for a look, there are these kooks flying what looked like a 6.5, on a beach that was less than 10M wide, and they were jammed up one end approx 10M from a rock groin, they could no have picked a worse spot to fly it.
Some guy was giving a lightweight girl a lesson and having to hang on to her harness to stop her from slamming the concrete wall in front of them - amazing stuff.

I was on the 11M Ozone Instinct EdgeII, amazing kite, upwind like nothing else on the bay, and awesome bottom end too, most other kites out were 12/13/14/16M, wind was topping maybe 20 knots.

Cya and

Goodwinds

Steve

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Kitepower Australia said...

I was on the 11M Ozone Instinct EdgeII, amazing kite, upwind like nothing else on the bay, and awesome bottom end too, most other kites out were 12/13/14/16M, wind was topping maybe 20 knots.

Hmm... I do not think so.... would like to compare it next time with a speed 2/ Pulse 2 / Psycho 3.

Cheers

Granini

yep, the season in Sydney has been very depressing this year.
waited on the beach for 4 hours yesterday ---- sounds like I left too early.
:-(

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granini said...

Kitepower Australia said...

I was on the 11M Ozone Instinct EdgeII, amazing kite, upwind like nothing else on the bay, and awesome bottom end too, most other kites out were 12/13/14/16M, wind was topping maybe 20 knots.

Hmm... I do not think so.... would like to compare it next time with a speed 2/ Pulse 2 / Psycho 3.

Cheers

Granini

G'day Granini

Yeap, take it for a spin anytime mate, and I'll go on a Speed2 (better upwind than Pyscho3), then we can swap.
I've flown my Speed2 and the Edge2, the Edge is better upwind, much lighter on the bar faster turning and bigger and longer jumps. Still like the SP2 and PS3 though!
Super easy and reliabe relaunch too, I slammed it in at least 6 times yesterday (trying to learn a certain trick), and relaunched it quickly even from an ugly dead downwind super smash!! Only had to point the bar.

What I actually meant by that quote, was comparing the Edge2 11M to anything else on the bay - yesterday!

Cya and

Goodwinds

Steve

If it makes you feel any better Adelaide has had one of its best seasons for a long time. Riding 4 to 6 days a week and the biggest kite I ride is a 10m Havoc.

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Kitepower Australia said...
G'day Granini

Yeap, take it for a spin anytime mate, and I'll go on a Speed2 (better upwind than Pyscho3), then we can swap.
I've flown my Speed2 and the Edge2, the Edge is better upwind, much lighter on the bar faster turning and bigger and longer jumps. Still like the SP2 and PS3 though!
Super easy and reliabe relaunch too, I slammed it in at least 6 times yesterday (trying to learn a certain trick), and relaunched it quickly even from an ugly dead downwind super smash!! Only had to point the bar.

What I actually meant by that quote, was comparing the Edge2 11M to anything else on the bay - yesterday!

Cya and

Goodwinds

Steve

Would love to try the Ozone... looks like a very nice kite, pretty fast in the turns. But because of those crappy winds in Sydney I do not see the chance to get going and having fun with a 11 in the next days. Do you have a 13 as demo as well? How does it compare to the REV?

Still crossing my fingers for some decent windy days. Looks like a lot of thunderstorms are coming through this week.

Cheers

Granini

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Kitepower Australia said...

I did see something strange in the distance last night looked like a Wipika classic so rode down for a look, there are these kooks flying what looked like a 6.5, on a beach that was less than 10M wide, and they were jammed up one end approx 10M from a rock groin, they could no have picked a worse spot to fly it.
Some guy was giving a lightweight girl a lesson and having to hang on to her harness to stop her from slamming the concrete wall in front of them - amazing stuff.

I was down there yesterday too - saw the same people you described. The beach is actually about 20m wide, and the spot next to the groins at either end are certainly the widest parts of the beach (25m) - but I couldn't understand:

1. Why they were in the downwind corner of the groin,
2. Why someone was giving lessons in 18kts with more onshore rather than sideshore wind on such a narrow beach. That part of the beach is better suited to a SSW, S, or SSE to stop you getting anywhere near the wall when launching/landing if something goes wrong. The wind yesterday was more ESE-SE and meant it had a fair component of on shore (not far off perpendicular at times). Not good for such a narrow beach.

That girl was only about 50kg ringing wet and I saw her get airborne many a time (but she was held down by the guy holding the harness). The wind certainly did pick up round 5.30/6pm and it was definately not the best conditions for lessons.

Agree with Steve though - patience eventually gets rewarded. Lucky, cause if I had of got there yesterday and there was no wind again - the wind gods would be taken to a room full of uppercuts thats for sure.

Friday is looking good too. fingers crossed.