Post by batchoy on Sept 26, 2011 19:01:42 GMT
Firstly a big thank you to Jon and Gill for organizing the event, to Cycliststeve for all his help on Saturday and to the two anglers on their jetski on Sunday and anyone else who lent a hand.
We started Saturday with so little wind that for a while there were only a couple of us flying no wind/low wind kites. As the morning progressed the wind built to a steady 8-10mph unfortunately it was off the land so we all suffered from the turbulence generated by the buildings and with all my lifters wanting to fly to the right I ended up on one of Andrew Beattie's 8m pilots (so I wasn't too bother about being wiped out by his kites)
With no camping at this years festival, we booked into the Two Chimneys Holiday Park just out side Margate, and I have to say although we never met them proprietors were very helpful and gave us the pitch number so that we could drive straight on and park up with out worrying about the fact that the reception was closed.
Come Sunday the wind has strengthened and shifted slightly but the direction was still from the land. The first big incident of the day was when Andrew Beattie's Manta came down in the sea. Having swapped its lifter to something bigger to get its airborne again whilst wet and caked with sand, we were struggling to get it down again we the second incident occurred.
With our all our energies concentrated on the manta, we missed what was happening elsewhere, and with an almighty crack my Molar Flowform (which George Webster constantly referred to as a Sutton Flowform) went drifting out to sea. With most of its 200m of line below it dragging in the sea the flowform seemed to continue going for miles. Using up most of my luck for the year I had the flowform returned by two anglers on a jetski who went out of their way to retrieve it: on returning it they seem more worried that they had got the flying line tangled than anything else.
The two highlights of the weekend were Rolf Zimmerman's dragons and Team Imagina from Spain. With no disrespect to Rev fliers (I don't have the skill to team fly) but to a degree when you have seen one Rev Team you've seem them all, but Team Imagina are something different. The four person team took turns in costume: Ballerina (man in white wig and Tutu - I can just imagine Daz or Baz in one ;D), Pierrot, young boy, witch and whilst two or three of them flew the ones in costume interacted with the kites to give the public a great and entertaining performance of not just kite flying but dance/acting/mine.
We started Saturday with so little wind that for a while there were only a couple of us flying no wind/low wind kites. As the morning progressed the wind built to a steady 8-10mph unfortunately it was off the land so we all suffered from the turbulence generated by the buildings and with all my lifters wanting to fly to the right I ended up on one of Andrew Beattie's 8m pilots (so I wasn't too bother about being wiped out by his kites)
With no camping at this years festival, we booked into the Two Chimneys Holiday Park just out side Margate, and I have to say although we never met them proprietors were very helpful and gave us the pitch number so that we could drive straight on and park up with out worrying about the fact that the reception was closed.
Come Sunday the wind has strengthened and shifted slightly but the direction was still from the land. The first big incident of the day was when Andrew Beattie's Manta came down in the sea. Having swapped its lifter to something bigger to get its airborne again whilst wet and caked with sand, we were struggling to get it down again we the second incident occurred.
With our all our energies concentrated on the manta, we missed what was happening elsewhere, and with an almighty crack my Molar Flowform (which George Webster constantly referred to as a Sutton Flowform) went drifting out to sea. With most of its 200m of line below it dragging in the sea the flowform seemed to continue going for miles. Using up most of my luck for the year I had the flowform returned by two anglers on a jetski who went out of their way to retrieve it: on returning it they seem more worried that they had got the flying line tangled than anything else.
The two highlights of the weekend were Rolf Zimmerman's dragons and Team Imagina from Spain. With no disrespect to Rev fliers (I don't have the skill to team fly) but to a degree when you have seen one Rev Team you've seem them all, but Team Imagina are something different. The four person team took turns in costume: Ballerina (man in white wig and Tutu - I can just imagine Daz or Baz in one ;D), Pierrot, young boy, witch and whilst two or three of them flew the ones in costume interacted with the kites to give the public a great and entertaining performance of not just kite flying but dance/acting/mine.