Being generous. Option 1.

I thought of a nice, informative answer for you with examples and rules of thumb and stuff, but I've got a bit of a headache so, if you have to ask then the answer is no.

Go to Brighton and watch the carnage in a northerly. See who gets into trouble, who doesn't have any fun, who rides around as though there's nothing wrong.

Think it through yourself in terms of:
- your chances of getting yourself safely back to the beach if you screw up (which is highly likely).
- the chances of you screwing up because the wind is gusty and you have no idea what you are doing.
- your ability to decide to ditch your gear and save yourself.

PS If you're thinking in degrees and angles and stuff you're way off the beam.

when flying aircraft - its better to be on the ground, wishing you were in the air, than the other way around.

i'm not an experienced kiter but i use this same thought model when considering whether to go kiting. if conditions mean an unforeseen issue will get me into trouble - wishing i'd decided not to push it, i give it a miss.

just my newbie 2 cents worth.

Thanks for the advice all.

I'm certainly not advocating going out with an offshore wind... and appreciate the feedback.

I've also considered staying out in slightly offshore conditions but a couple of weeks ago I crashed my kite, the lines went slack and looped around the kite meaning I could do nothing but get dragged directly down wind with a large amount of pull from the kite. The wind was cross onshore so all I had to worry about was whether my kite would tear and how long it would take me to get back up wind. I can't imagine how stressful it would have been if the wind had of been offshore and I was getting dragged out to sea.

So to sum up, you "can" go out in slightly offshore winds, but in addition to gusty winds ruining your fun, it wouldn't take much to turn a small mistake into a big one.

I would have thought even option 1 in your diagram would be gusty and **** as the wind is coming off the higher land mass down by the Sandy yacht club.