Essential Gear for Kiteboarding in Light Winds

Welcome back to MACkiteboarding. This is Jake, and today I'm going to talk about something we have a lot of experience with here in Michigan, and that is making the most of those light wind days. I'm going to break it down into the three ways to do it: a big kite, a big board, and a hydrofoil. I'll rank them based on my personal preferences, take you through what I like and don't like about each, and hopefully that helps you to decide which direction you want to go when it comes to expanding into those light wind sessions.

Go Big

Let's start with my number one favorite way to get riding in light winds: a big kite. I think it's easy, and it makes the day fairly predictable when you have one in your quiver. Let's say we're going down to the beach and it's just passing those threshold winds. For us, that tends to be 10 to 12 knots. I can bring a 15 or 17 meter kite to take advantage of that before it hits 15. Once it goes over 15 or 16 knots, then I'm probably looking to size down to my 12 or 13 meter, depending on the kite.

What's nice about the big kite is you can take one bar and two or three kites, depending on how much variability you're going to have, and you have a fairly predictable session. You know which board you're going to ride and you have your harness, so there's not a lot of extraneous gear. One kite on the back, one kite on the front, and you're ready to rip. I like that big kites give you more power. They're not necessarily the best method to eke out a session in those threshold winds; that might be a foil and we'll get into that later, but it's a great way to have fun when there is enough wind for light wind riding. You're not necessarily going to take it and have a ripping session at 10 knots, but when it's blowing 12 to 15 or 16, you're going to be able to jump, do some tricks, and jam upwind.

Because you learn a lot of skills that you don't necessarily learn when you're in powered conditions, it's also a good opportunity to learn how to fly a big kite in light winds. One of the keys to my early success was spending time flying in light winds. I not only learned a lot about wind direction and kite control, which was really valuable, but those times I pushed it and stayed out too long and put my kite in the drink, I also learned how to self-rescue. I would learn how to self-launch and self-land. I realize you can't do that everywhere, but there are moments where it's really valuable to have those skills, and if you're able to learn those in light winds, especially on a big kite that's fairly slow, I think that's a great opportunity to hone those skills while keeping the consequences fairly low. For example, this time of year we can ride but it is dang chilly, so those are precious moments if you go down. If you don't already have good experience with a self-rescue and you don't react immediately, you can really put yourself in some trouble and have to jettison your gear, so don't discount the importance of learning in light winds. It can be pretty frustrating if you don't get a session, but then again, you're at the beach and you're in the water, so how bad is life, really?

Learn to Foil

Next I would go with the hydrofoil. The hydrofoil is close to being number one, but I think that the added steps in having to carry it down to the beach make it number two, if I'm being honest. It seems like a pretty superfluous reason, but just having to make the room in the van for the foil and the board can be a hassle. In fact, one of the reasons I have a van is so I can keep them combined so I'm not assembling them at the beach, but even carrying it down can be hard to do in one trip. If you're squeezing in a quick session, it takes extra time having to do that double trip down and back up.

The foil, though, is so dang fun. You're learning new skills and it just feels otherworldly. I've described it before as like a magic carpet ride. It's silent for the most part, and you feel like you're floating. You can really get moving in such light winds because, once you're up and riding, there's very little resistance. I've had some of my favorite light wind sessions on a foil. Again, it's really hard not to say it's number one, but I need to have the time to set up my foil and bring it down, so I think I would still go with a big kite for my top pick.

When it comes to picking out the right foil, that's going to vary a bit based on when you're looking to use it. If you are looking to take advantage of light winds, you'll probably want a surf foil for most brands. For Slingshot, for example, that's the Infinity 76. You can go smaller than that, but it's not going to have that same low speed lift and stability. You can go larger than that, but if the wind comes up it's easy to get blown off your foil by having too much power and lift. I think a surf foil tends to be a good all-around light wind foil option that you can still hold down when the wind sneaks up. The nice thing about foils is that their front wings are so modular these days that you can switch it out for the conditions.

I feel that one of the drawbacks of the foil is when the wind all of a sudden sneaks up and you get blown off the foil, then you're going to switch over to your twintip, and that can sometimes be a bit of a jarring transition. Sometimes you just want to go out and shred on a foil. By having too much wind and then having to take the foil in and change your front wing or switch to your twintip, it's a very different style of riding. I guess you can consider yourself lucky for being out there and being able to ride for a day, but it is one of those downsides.

Let's go over the pros for the foil: it is a very novel experience, you're learning new skills, and it feels very different and there's excitement in that. It also works really well in light winds. I think it's probably the best way to take advantage of light wind conditions, and if you pair a big kite with a big foil, man, now you are in business. But that's not in the spirit of this video where we have to pick just one.

The downsides are that a foil is more gear you're hauling down to the beach, and if the wind really comes up quite a bit, you might need to either switch out your front wing or your board, and that can be a little jarring if you weren't planning on doing so. In contrast, with the big kite you're still flying a kite as the wind comes up, and you're going to have more power, so on those marginal days you're still able to jump, do tricks, and have a lot of fun. A big kite is very easy to carry down to the beach: one kite on the back and one kite on the front, and you're ready for a whole day of ripping. As the wind comes up, you simply put your kite down, pump up the other one, and you're ready to go. However, that is also one of the disadvantages; it does take up more space as you're switching, and then do you leave it up or do you take it down? Leaving it up can expose it to additional wear and UV exposure, so it's not quite as seamless as you might think, but overall it is still fairly simple. I don't think it's quite as efficient as a foil, personally, but I'm okay with those downsides because it's just so much fun to have a powered, boosty session in light winds.

I Like Big Boards And I Can Not Lie

Number three on my list is going with a light wind board. Generally, this is going to be a twintip, and they exist in a couple different shapes that do different things but are optimized for light wind riding. Some are fairly wide, which gives you a lot more surface area, but that's just a big, boxy barge. It's really great for mowing the lawn. You also have longer and skinnier boards that allow you to build more board speed. That's a little bit more of a carver where you get that upwind drive by building the speed. Then there are hybrids of these like the light wave wing, which has a wider tip and tail and then narrows off, so it combines the best of both worlds.

Light wind twintips are super fun to ride, but they do tend to be lawn mowers. I'm not saying they always are--I know there are plenty of guys that are out there shredding on them--but when I'm riding them in lighter winds, I'm doing a lot more cruising. That can be great too; sometimes it's nice to just go out there dolphin watching, but you're not going to be playing with them. If you load and pop on them, there's a lot more force there. You have to be a bit more precise since you're hauling around a larger board on your feet. Personally, I think it's worth cruising around and having a good time.

Your light wind board doesn't necessarily need to be a twintip, however. There are days where I haven't been able to catch a wave in a while, and I'll grab my surf shape for a light wind session. There are some pretty cool benefits to this. It allows you to refine and hone your surfing technique a bit, getting those transitions down, getting your placement down, and how you carry through on an edge, and that translates to those days where there's a nice wave and it really matters. The extra volume of your surfboard really makes a difference for light wind tacking. You sometimes want to think about your fin placement; it won't quite come up on edge like your twintip will, but it's still a great magic missile for shooting upwind and having a fun session. Again, because it's not a twintip, you're either riding toeside or doing some transition, so you're still working on skills out there, and that's part of what makes kiteboarding so fun.

The Short & Sweet

I think that gets to the crux of this video and why I prefer each of these in their respective order: because of the skill-building and the novelty they provide. With a light wind kite, I'm able to go out there and still practice jumps and tricks and, in fact, I'm able to do them in a safer environment where the stakes aren't quite as high as when you're out blasting on your 12 or 9 meter. You really get to focus on kite control. It's a bit slower, but that probably makes you more precise. It's a little lower, but that helps you dial in the rotation and the timing, so you can still progress and have a lot of fun with a kite.

When you jump over to the foilboard, again, it's novelty. This is a very unique-feeling experience, and I feel like I have so much to learn with foiling transitions, balance, and switching around, so it's always exciting and I feel like I'm learning and progressing.

With twintips, I still have a good time, though I'm just out there cruising. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's why it's third on my list. I do put an asterisk on the surfboard because that's really fun and it's a good way to build skills. A lot of us have surfing backgrounds, so it feels nice paying homage to that when you're out there on the water.

Kite, foilboard, and twintip is my order, but your order can be vastly different. The reality is that anything that gets you out there riding is a win. As always, thanks for checking us out. This has been Jake with MACkite.

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