2018. Kiters, the other side of sailing. Thanks to a kite!

Welcome to the special section “GdV 5th Years.” We are introducing you, day by day, An article from the archives of the Journal of Sailing, starting in 1975. A word of advice, get in the habit of starting your day with the most exciting sailing stories-it will be like being on a boat even if you are ashore.

Kite surfing, the other side of sailing. Thanks to a kite!

Excerpted from the 2018 Journal of Sailing, Year 44, No. 03, April, pp. 12-17.

Discovering Kite Surfing, the other side of sailing becoming the emerging phenomenon with millions of fans, many also thrill-seeking sailors. All the kiters need is a bag; they travel the world in search of a beach and the wind.

leggi anche

2013. Sixty-five knots under sail, how is that possible?

Kiter, free spirit

The Olympics, the diatribes with the sailing planet, the interests of the federations, the business of the sport, kiteboarders are going to be tight. They are rebellious souls, idealists, dreamers and egoists. Here is “mondokite” explained to sailors.

Kiteboarders and sailors glare at each other and can’t stand each other. When we tried to ask readers on the web if they thought kiting was “sailing,” all hell broke loose. “It is, it serves the wind with the kite!”, “It is not, J-Classes are the sail”… and so on. In the welter of discussion, we awakened an outstanding kiter, David Ingiosi, journalist and editor of Kitesoul Magazine, the leading publication in the field (www.kitesoul.com). Ingiosi, who by the way is also an avid sailor, sent us an article in which he explains to sailors the universe and the “lifestyle” of kitesurfers. It is not just a matter of equipment, buoyancy skills, sail propulsion, and other technical subtleties that make kiters and sailors different, Ingiosi explains, but their universe of reference: the origins, the language, the style. Above all, their approach to the water, the sea and its boundaries is different. Kiters are like pirates. Sailors are the “chic” sailors. There is bad blood between kitesurfing and sailing. On one side are the riders, free, dispassionate, lovers of the beach life; on the other side are the sailors, proud, a bit snooty and romantic. They have always glared at each other. Actually mostly because they don’t know each other well. Sure, there is a sort of osmosis with sailors deciding to learn to kite (on Luna Rossa’s crew in 2014, more than half the members were kiting for relaxation and fun) and vice versa, kiters starting to get on a boat, even if only to go find a windy spot or go on a catamaran kite safari. The two worlds are pretty far apart, though. In fact, it is the target universe that is distant. Kitesurfing is a relatively young discipline, part of board sports, developed in the Hawaiian Islands, as to say the “Mecca” of water sports. Sailing was born with civilization, it is linked to the nautical tradition, to seafaring, it is an ancient world in which there is everything in it: travel, man, history, exploration, discovery, trade. Only later did sailing become a sport, boating vacations, regattas, America’s Cup, world tours in record time.

Kiters feel like surfers, not sailors

The first practitioners of kitesurfing were surfers, curious to experience new ways of riding waves. This is no accident, because kitesurfing, get it through your head, was born from surfing. It is an evolution of it. The word itself says so. Kiting carries with it the culture of surfing and beach life. The religion of kiters is to seek wind, freedom, speed, love of waves, travel, endless summers, and the codes of a tribe that speaks the same language, shares the same rituals, and experiences the same fascinations. Hence the short-circuit of kitesurfing with sailing. And I am not talking about official recognition, federations, labels attached to a discipline for marketing, business or institutional framing needs, albeit legitimate. I’m really talking about spirit. The average kiter does not feel like a sailor. He knows nothing about sailing, navigation, seafaring culture. He doesn’t give a damn. The only knot he knows how to tie is the wolf’s mouth to connect the tiller lines to the kite. Stop. The gaits he knows are going upwind or going downwind, that’s it. The kiter is not even a sailor. His horizon is not the open sea; he sails, indeed he glides at full speed, almost always close to the shore, indeed often within a meter of the shoreline where he likes to perform breathtaking jumps to impress girls in bikinis. The kiter is a sea coquette. To him, sailors are snobbish people who sail with GPS, have cocktails at the club, and use the boat as their seaside villa.

leggi anche

2002. Renzo Piano’s strange, incredible boat

The sea for a kiter is just a playground

The popularity of kitesurfing in recent years has attracted all kinds of people: surfers, windsurfers, the curious and hairless sailors themselves. But also people who used to sit on the beach sunbathing with their Ipods in their ears and maybe curse the wind because it forced them to close their umbrella. These people who have become kiters only see the sea as a playground. Sure, they respect it, because they’ll take a beating too if something goes wrong, but there’s no seawolf smugness in that. And then there are always the lakes, lagoons or river deltas where they can let off steam without the stress of being a sailor. Only a handful of kiters have a technical, seafaring approach to the discipline in the broadest sense: the athletes, the endurance enthusiasts, those who use kites to sail and explore coastlines or break long-distance records. That’s why sailors and kiteboarders look at each other quizzically. And it’s not just a matter of equipment, buoyancy skills, sail propulsion, and other technical niceties. It is the approach to the water, the sea and its boundaries that is different. The kiter is a rebel; the sailor is a gentleman of the sea.

It’s sailing or wanting to kite surf, not the other way around

Today the relationship between sailing and kitesurfing has improved in the sense that at least officially kitesurfing has been recognized as a sailing discipline. It is an interested choice, to be honest, because kitesurfing has brought a breath of fresh air to the sailing world: new people, especially many practitioners who continue to grow every year, but also research, design, material development, market, and visibility. If all goes well, kitesurfing in a few years will become an Olympic sailing sport. Meanwhile, it already is at the youth level, so the road is pretty much paved. It is not kitesurfing that has approached sailing, however, but it is the latter that for its own interests has decided to put aside its pride and with gritted teeth open its arms to the newcomer. Hopefully not to crush him, as he did with windsurfing.

Kite surfing: many disciplines, one love for the wind

In truth, not much changes for kiters if kitesurfing becomes an Olympic discipline. Because at the Olympics a minimal representation of what the sport really is would be staged. There are many disciplines in kitesurfing: Racing, Hydrofoiling, Speed, Freestyle, Wave, Big Air, Freeride, Strapless Freestyle, etc. That means different equipment and materials, different approaches and philosophy. At the Olympic Games there will be an ersatz of all this. In short, hot air. There are about 1.5 million kiters in the world, and each one has his or her own motivation and unique, intimate connection to the sport. For many to be honest, kitesurfing is not even a sport, but a vital need, like breathing. For some it is like a drug, from which an addiction-astinence cycle develops. However different the approach to this discipline may be what is certain is that kiters are free spirits, outside the rules. They are like pirates. That’s why they feel like children of a world apart, which those who have never lifted a kite into the sky and started gliding will honestly never understand.

By David Ingiosi edited by Eugenio Ruocco

• Check out all the articles from the GdV archive in this section