The post Hello world! appeared first on kitesurfing.

I’m glad to see that nearly everyone got a good kite session in today. I’ve been sick all week so had to sit this one out on the sidelines. So how do I know that everyone was out today? Well the photo speaks for itself. I was sitting down in the sun at Dee Why and counted over 30 kites in the air and could still see people pumping up on the beach! That is seriously busy stuff for Long Reef! The wind didn’t look super strong judging by the size of everyones kites and it looked very weak south of the pole.

An interesting thing is I keep hearing that people want to start kiting at Longy and in the surf however they are a little apprehensive about the waves being too big. Well today would have been perfect as there was very small surf and good wind. If you chose not to head to Longy today and you want to try and get out into the sea a little more then unfortunately you’ve missed out today. If this sounds like a thought that has gone through your head and it keeps you from trying drop us an email and we’ll help assist you get over your fears of the waves and being out in the open sea.

Well I hope everyone stayed safe and there were no mishaps or tangles!

Good to also see the WhatsApp group working this week as well, lots of info and updates on wind recently. If you want to join the group just shoot Pete an email at pete@kitesurfing.com.au

Have a good week..

The post What a cracking BUSY day! appeared first on kitesurfing.

Hey all,

After walking through the city this morning and noticing it seemed quite windy I had a quick check of the charts and forecasts. Looks like we’ll be on for a half-decent system driven NE’er today hat isn’t a seabreeze and that means it SHOULD be windy on the Northern Beaches! AND as an added bonus there is a Southerly front coming through at some stage tomorrow that means we’ll be on for more excellent wind conditions!!

This is good news for the people (Like Hans) that don’t seem to work as they will get an all day to swagger about in the surf but for the rest of us mere mortals that have to answer to the man it’s either bunking off work or getting out early to make the most of the last of daylight savings!

Spots that ‘should’ be good today – Fishermans and Narrabeen and hopefully off the end of the Reef. Palmy for those up the northern end.

Spots for tomorrow – Longy, Newport Reef, Narra etc etc.

At time of writing it’s 15-20knots NE across the Sydney region, I did check the moon tonight and unfortunately it’s not suitable for ‘night kite :(‘

The post Sydney wind forecast. Kite more, work less. appeared first on kitesurfing.

Another amazing quality video from Andrew F at Long Reef from the good southerly wind DS we’ve had of late. I know this is mainly windsurfing but there are some kites in the video so you may recognize yourself if you look hard. Be sure to watch it in full HD quality if you can. Andrew is getting pretty handy with his DJI Phantom, make sure you also check out his other quality videos over on vimeo.

The post Windsurfing from the air (with some kites) appeared first on kitesurfing.

Well… There is wind! I popped down the beach at about 9am to have a look, it’s a bit wet and still some good looking wind around after Fridays southerly buster came through changing conditions considerably from the warm sunny blue skies we woke up to.

At 9am there were about 8 or 9 kites out at Long Reef, it looked very on shore and if the wind swings any more to the east it’ll be dead on shore. Waves were small and looked in the 2ft and fat blown out range. one kite was out around the reef where I would suspect there are good clean conditions and maybe the odd wave.

So, if you are not happy with almost dead on shore Long Reef where else is there to kite on the beaches today? Well, Narrabeen has always proven a good spot away from the crowds and is slightly less on shore in these winds, I’d think about having a crack at Newport Reef and see what is going on up there. Pretty much any beach big enough would be ‘do-able’ but it’s up for you to decide if its on and safe.

For the surfers it’s looking pretty poor, the corner at Dee Why looked out the wind a bit more and had a shoulder high wave to play on if you wanted to fight the grommits.

Looking ahead..

Looking ahead the week is looking pretty good on todays forecast with wind from both directions being forecast, as always its hard to predict and when it’s that variable its likely to change on a day by day basis but as DAYLIGHT SAVINGS ends in less than 2 weeks I’d be planning your after work hours carefully and reserving them for emergency kite sessions and it’s the last we’ll be having after work for a while. (Unless you are Billy or one of those people that doesn’t seem to work!)

The post Conditions report for Long Reef, March 21st appeared first on kitesurfing.

Hans sent through these great go-pro images from a strapless kitesurfing session he managed to jag the other day. This was Sunday’s great session I believe where we were blessed my sunshine and cranking winds. Even I managed to get down for my first kite in a while and got out on the 7m! Fab stuff Hans, keep the pictures rolling in.

If you haven’t yet tried strapless kitesurfing it’s easy to give it a go! A lot of people are put off by the thought of being strapless and whilst it does take a lot of practice it will always improve your kitesurfing skills and make a more rounded kiter. If you want a lending hand and some coaching on strapless kiting get in touch with Pete here at the site and he can help you through the process.

Another good read is Rob’s articles on choosing a surfboard for strapless kitesurfing. It’s a 3 part article and a great read.

PART 1 – How to choose a strapless surfboard

PART 2 – How to choose a strapless surfboard

PART 3 – How to choose a strapless surfboard

As always check out our Northern Beaches Facebook page for other chatter.

The post A strapless kitesurfing session at Long Reef & Dee Why appeared first on kitesurfing.

We love a good southerly wind for kitesurfing / windsurfing, they are always reliable, strong, usually pretty consistent and can hang about for the whole day or even longer. The best part however is that when one is forecast there is a 99% chance of it turning up (unlike a seabreeze on the Northern Beaches!) The only issue is when.. The forecast models and seabreeze can be a bit out sometimes, we went through a trend a while back of them turning up 3 or 4 hours ahead of schedule but recently they have been pretty close. But how can when that southerly wind will really hit and how strong will it be?

Thankfully the wonderful website seabreeze has the answers we need and the BOM has provided us with the perfect resource.. Wind meters all the way up the east coast! Now when a southerly hits the Sydney region it rattles through pretty quick, so if we need a little more time to finish our latte’s or get away from the wife we need more warning! Bring on the Illawarra charts..

Located an hour or so south of Sydney is the Illawarra coast, it’s pretty much dead south of us (further south can work also to some extent). If we know a southerly wind is forecast we can use the charts south to (say Kiama or Point Perpendicular) to watch for the southerly wind change. This tells us it’s ON IT’S WAY.. but how long??

Let’s look at an example for today (Thursday 5th March 2015), here is the chart for Kiama. Perfectly you can see the southerly wind change hit almost exactly at 12pm. This is perfect for us to work out time lag.

Now lets look at the chart for Sydney Airport

and now lets see the important Northern Beaches

I’ve made it pretty simple by writing the times the change hit on the graphs. I’ve never honestly done the real math of trying to work it out, and it will always depend on how strong the wind is. As a rule of thumb I’ve always said from Point Perpendicular to Long Reef is about 2 hours (that was the 2hrs I sent you Alex ) and it looks like I might be about spot on. We can see the wind change at Kiama at 12pm, the airport change at 1.09pm and then North Head go at 1.30pm.

So, if you were bunking off work today and were on the ball you would have been at Longy pumping up at about 1.30pm and you’ll be down on the beach right when it hits. That is called maximizing your water time! Yewww.. That’s about it. This approach doesn’t work for seabreezes but will work for frontal winds from the North too.

The other big benefit of taking a look further afield is we can see how strong the initial front is – sometimes we see a 40-45knot gust ahead of 25knots of good wind – and we can also see how long it’s going to last, it could just be a brief wind change under a big dark cloud for example or it could be a 3day gang banger of southerly! Or if’s going to swing offshore… Looking down south lets us know all this. Happy dayz..

As always, post your views and comments in the comments below if you know this works elsewhere, if you find this useful please share on facebook and with your friends.

The post When will a southerly wind hit Sydney? appeared first on kitesurfing.

Kitesurfing in Sydney has it’s restrictions! We have all the information you need to know and are local in Sydney so have real first hand experience of all the best locations for any ability and the local weather conditions and restrictions you should know about.

If you are about to fly or have already landed in Australia there are lots of resources available to you for information. you should start your research over at www.aksa.com.au (Kiteboarding Australia) and if you are in New South Wales then you need to look at www.nswkba.com.au. If you are here for a long period you should consider getting 3rd party insurance via either of those websites. NSWKBA has great maps and google map resources for locations and restrictions. Please take the time to look around the maps to see the restrictions near you. Sydney Harbor and Bondi are pretty much out of bounds in Sydney, you may see a few locals kiting at these spots occasionally but please don’t be tempted to follow them, they are breaking the rules.

You next resource will be www.seabreeze.com.au. This website is a huge resource and has a good forum full of opinions about the best kite or board, beware of the internet troll and keyboard warrior in the forums! There is however lots of useful information buried away and the rest of the site has very valuable resources like live wind charts for pretty much the whole country, swell and tide information, second hand gear for sale and a place that you can sell your gear. Seabreeze will become your daily habit checking the wind graphs!

A lot of the best locations in Australia are out in the open sea, this can be daunting to many people who are only used to flat water or have just started out kitesurfing. Australia has waves! They will always be here, you can either embrace them or avoid them, thankfully there are lots of resources available on the web to see how big the waves will be before you decide to get to the beach along with live surf cameras that help you see what is going on live. There are many, too many to list but the ones we use are www.surfit.com, www.coastalwatch.com.au, www.willyweather.com.au,

Another fantastic weather and conditions resource in the Australian Bureau of Meteorology  www.bom.gov.au. This is the source for a lot of the data used by other sites. The rain radar is very useful along with the ocean conditions charts. There is a lot of info here so take some time to look around.

Getting to know your local kite shop is also a great way to get information and meet people, kiters love hanging about the shop before the wind picks up so get to know them and ask about where you are going, maybe one of them will take you to the ‘secret’ spot the locals go to Google search will be your friend here..

As a last stop, take the time to look about on our site and email us any questions you may have. Remember to sign up for our newsletter using the sign up on the right side of the page to get all our website updates to your inbox.

Remember, kitesurfing can be dangerous for both yourself and others on the beach and water. Tale care and don’t do anything silly.

The post Kitesurfing in Sydney & Australia appeared first on kitesurfing.

If you are up on the Northern Beaches and looking for lessons in either kitesurfing, kiteboarding or Stand up paddle boarding the options can be pretty slim. One of our good buddies James Casey has just become a fully qualified IKO kitesurfing instructor and is willing to share his vast experience of kiting and stand up paddle boarding with you.

I’ve not seen many wave / surf oriented SUP lessons before so it is good to see this angle being covered.

James is pretty handy on a kite and incredible on a SUP. I’ll be hitting him up for some SUP surf sessions I think.

check out https://www.facebook.com/kitesupcoaching

The post Local Coaching and Lessons for Stand up paddling & Kitesurfing. appeared first on kitesurfing.

The post The bar has been raised.. Kite skiing.. On water. appeared first on kitesurfing.