Learn How to Kiteboard Upwind With These 5 Beginner Tips

Kiteboarding Upwind Is Your First Beginner Milestone

If you’re a beginner kiteboarder, going upwind means not walking back up the beach after each ride. If you’re jumping, you need to march upwind easily because every flight takes you downwind fast.

Back in the stone age, with 2-line kites, riders would pressure their back foot edging hard to slow their board speed allowing the kite to move to the edge of the window so they could ride upwind. We even used the pickle fork tail like ski brakes to slow the board, because 2-line kites don’t sheet out to depower your kite.

Many riders who learned in 2-line days still stomp on the tail, and new riders see the OG’s doing it and copy the strategy. Plus, the rooster tail of water shooting up in the sky looks cool.

This strategy was better than getting pulled downwind, but it is very inefficient. For one thing, the rooster tail of water shooting in the air is evidence of wasted energy that could have been used to pinch further upwind. It also tires out your back leg, hip and lower back.

More importantly, it is fighting the laws of physics instead of using them—specifically, leverage.

Think of your board like a teeter-totter (seesaw). That children's activity has a tipping point that can be adjusted for weight differences between riders. Your kiteboard is being pulled with the force centered at your chicken loop and harness hook, directed through the angle of your front lines.

Allowing your kite bar to be situated straight in between your harness hook and the kite places the force a few inches forward of the center of effort for the board. This means that the kite is perpetually trying to pull the nose of the board downwind.

Sliding Your Control Bar Back to Go Upwind

You can move your tipping point (fulcrum) by pressing the bar towards the tail a few inches. Move the fulcrum by “sliding” the bar back.

Suddenly the kite force is pulling more on the tail of your board, pressuring the nose upwind. Simultaneously, use the leverage from pressing the bar towards the tail to rotate your hips upwind. Like sitting on a barstool and using your hands to push the bar in the opposite direction of the rotation of your chair. This is incredibly easy and changes everything.

Sliding, or pressing the bar back 2 to 4 inches is the easiest modification, and the biggest improvement for your riding in the entire kiteboarding progression.

Adding a Third Point of Leverage

Extending on the barstool analogy, If you’re tired, or maybe had a few drinks, it’s easier to keep your balance if you press a hand down on the bar while standing.

Standing on two feet is like being on a two-legged stool. You have work to remain upright. Pressing a hand down gives you the third leg of a stool, for stability.

Stability improves precision for both your board control and kite control. Further increasing precision and efficiency, while conserving your energy/muscles.

So, in addition to sliding the bar back towards the back foot, also press down on the bar a couple of inches, and this will greatly increase the leverage you get when going upwind.

Once you’re balanced with controlling these forces, you can let go with your front hand, (back-hand near the center of the bar without threading fingers), raise and extend it over the nose to add even more leverage in addition to shifting your weight forward.

Body and Board Positioning for Kiteboarding Upwind

Hips forward, shoulders back, arms long, head high. Small adjustments for bar control can be done by extending from the shoulders with straight arms (stiff arm punch style).

A slight extension on the left combined with a slight contraction on the right when both hands are near the center can move the kite significantly, while still maintaining the leverage you get by leaning farther from your bar, and as tall as possible.

Look where you want to go, not where you are. As you start pointing upwind your board speed will decrease and you don’t need to keep the nose as high.

Flattening the board, and distributing your weight over more surface area effectively makes you lighter. Apply more front foot pressure and less heel pressure.

Your weight at any given time is distributed over the amount of board surface area that is in contact with the water. Leaning on the tail with excess edging has you riding on just a few square inches of the board. This effectively makes you weigh 300% more.

Flattening the board to about 10 degrees heel pressure, and 50/50 back/front foot pressure will increase the amount of surface area making your pounds per square inch decrease by more than 50%. That’s a net change of 400%.

When you are effectively “lighter” you require less power to ride, and your kite can keep you powered at slower speeds, allowing your kite to fly closer to the edge of the wind window without stalling. This allows you to point higher into the wind.

The further upwind you point, the flatter you can make your board. And because you’re able to stay on top of the water at a much slower speed, you won’t be stuffing the nose of your board into the oncoming chop.

Once you’re at this stage, you can position your kite higher in the wind window so that the kite's power is lifting you. Thus making you even lighter, and therefore able to point even higher.

Anticipating the Gusts and Lulls

Look 15 to 30 degrees upwind of your heading to read the wind and waves that will meet you in 3 to 5 seconds. What you see in front of you now won’t be there when you arrive at that point, those conditions will already be downwind of you.

The conditions that you’ll be entering are currently upwind of you. Looking upwind also engages a twist in your body, when combined with pressing the bar to the back, that will help you to point your board even more upwind.

If you wait for a gust of wind to hit you before adjusting your kite trim and board, you’re trying to block a punch after you’ve been hit. Just like with bikes and motorcycles leaning into a turn, you don’t turn and then lean, you anticipate the need, and lean into the turn proactively.

When a gust is about to hit your kite, which happens a second or two before it hits you on your board, you need to sheet out and turn your board upwind as you enter the gust.

This way, you maintain speed while using the additional power to increase your upwind angle. If you wait for a gust to increase your board speed before sheeting out, it is much more difficult to transfer the additional power into heading upwind.

When you’re approaching a glassy patch of water, which indicates a lull or hole in the wind, don’t wait until the board speed has slowed and the kite is drifting backward in the window to then try and sine your kite. Anticipate the need for more power and sine your kite while you’re still powered. Your board speed will accelerate into the lull and the sine wave of your kite will already be utilizing the apparent wind created by the sine wave.

As you enter the hole (or lull), flatten your board so it requires less power to stay on plane. Head a little more downwind in order to improve your induced wind because maintaining speed is more important than briefly holding a higher angle of attack upwind.

Another factor is that most gusts are more than an increase in the wind’s strength, it usually includes a significant change in the wind angle hitting your kite. Once you recognize the pattern, you’ll find that transitioning every time the gust hits can march you upwind much faster because the geometry is used to your advantage.

There are times when you’re pinching so tightly upwind that you actually have more weight shifted to the front foot than the back foot. This is when your angle of attack to the wind is high, your board is flattened out with just slight heel pressure with the kite high to absorb most of your weight. Stand tall with weight on your forward hip.

Observing Wind Conditions and Rigging the Right Size Kite

Every time you launch, ride upwind first. Make several tacks, in or out, without jumping. This gives you a feel for the gusts and lulls, and a strategic advantage over the kiters who mow the lawn in front of the launch.

It also gives you a sense of whether you chose the right size kite and board for the condition. If the wind is lighter than expected, a couple of jumps on the way out might take you downwind, and you can ride back upwind.

But if you try to ride upwind on your first tacks and can just make it back to your launch, you know that you need to rig big or wait and pray for more wind. Conversely, you might ride out and on your first jump, you hit a gust of wind that spanks you. On average there will be a cycle of gusts and lulls.

Like with wave surfing, you should spend at least 15 minutes watching the conditions before heading out.

Primary Takeaways:

• Correctly assess the wind
• Rig the right size kite
• Maintain proper riding posture
• Press slightly down on your bar
• Slide your bar back