Ride with Blake | 4 Tips to Land a Kite

Step One: Catch someone’s attention on the beach by tapping your head.

Make sure that as you are coming in you have gotten the attention of someone before starting to put your kite down. Make sure the person knows that you want them to land you before putting your kite down low at the edge of the wind window. If they are not there in time and your kite crashes it can launch back in the air and take you with it. This will not only be bad for you but for your kite and everyone on the beach.

Step Two: Spatial awareness

Understand the length of your lines, the damage that can be done and where to properly land your kite. Just think of how far away your kite is and make sure that you are well beyond that distance away from people, trees, buildings or any other obstacles. You want to make sure that you have room for error as you approach the beach and avoid landing upwind of people on the beach.

Step three: Land your kite towards the water

Obviously, not everyone does this and I don’t do this all the time but this video is on how to “safely launch and land your kite.” The safest way to land it would be to walk in towards land while keeping your kite above your head and then angling it towards shore. This way as it is coming down, if anything goes wrong it will pull you towards the water and not towards the beach and whatever else lies beyond it. A way to get into the habit of doing this would be to set your board at the water's edge when you back to shore. This gives you a reference point as to where you want to land your kite and somewhere for your lander to stand near. With your board as a reference point you now know where you are going to be landing. Just like an airplane, the objective is to make it as smooth and accurate as possible.

Step Four: Sheet Out!

A common term that is misunderstood in kiting is “power” and “depower”. Think about sailing, you don’t power the sail, you trim it to adjust to the direction and speed you want to go. If your boat is headed straight down wind and your sail is trimmed all the way it won't have any power, whereas if you let out, or trim the mainsail you will go fast downwind. This concept applies to kiting as well, you would think that pulling in will always give you power and pushing out will let go of all power. That is not true. When you want to land, you do want