Boards 2004 Trip to Isla de Coche New world speed record ...

Fortunately you don’t reallyneed to go out and by twodifferent sets of equipment, butcan use any combination of kiteand board for both of thetechniques, but there are somedifferences that are worth tomention. For the classical jumpswhere you use the kite to getlifted out of the water a kite witha high AR combined with anarrow board with lots of grip isthe optimal. To make a wakestyle jump the opposite ispreferred, a wide board and akite with lower AR. The reasonto use a lower AR is that theystay deeper down in the powerzone, whereas kites with highAR tends to stay very high up inthe window when ridden. A kitewith high AR can thereforeeasily fly out of the power zonewhen you pop a jump. Howeverthere are some tricks to avoidthat this happens, but beforediscussing that we will take alook at the classical jumps.Classical jumpsA classical jump is illustrated inthe sequence below. The trick isas mentioned to redirect the kitein the opposite direction to theone you’re travelling and thenturn it back over your head oncethe board leaves the water. Theheight of the jump depends onmany things, but the mainingredients are high speed andgood power in the kite. To boostup the height further theredirection has to be quick andpowerful. The main difficulty isto maintain the edge of theboard throughout the whole redirection.This can be simplifiedby starting the redirection withthe kite in a higher position, like60 degrees from the water.Once in the air there is not toomuch to think about exceptmaking sure that you get thekite back in front of you beforelanding. Try to land with theboard flat and with the bodyweight straight over the centreof the board. Then it is just tostart edging again and pick upspeed for the next jump.Wake style jumpsFinally we look at how to pull offsome powerful wake stylejumps. Once again, speed andpower are the main ingredients,but instead of the redirection ofthe kite it is a powerful pop thatturns those into a high jump.One of the concerns is, asmentioned, to avoid that the kitelooses the power when the jumpis initiated. The trick to avoidthis is to get the kite furtherdown in the power zone. Thiscan be achieved by slowlyturning the kite up and thenback down in the same time asyou fall off a little with the boardto avoid getting lifted. The jumpis then initiated with a short andpowerful pop while the kite ismaintained low. In order to notmove the kite during the jump itcan be good to keep the handsclose to the centre of the bar,and don’t forget that a real wakeboard move is performedunhooked from the chickenloop!17