Guia Beach Show Jericoacoara-Ceará-Brasil

KITE SURF AND THE FLIGHT OF THE MOSQUITO. A SUCCESS STORY.
Alexandre Rolim, or just “Moskito”, is
a man who lives to feel good. He is
married to Vanessa Chastinet and is
the father of the gorgeous Sophia. In
2006, the couple opened the largest
Kitesurfing School in Latin America,
Rancho do Kite.
The school is open 12 months a year
on Praia do Preá, a few kilometers
far from Jericoacoara. In peak
season, they hire more than two
dozen instructors, and, on average,
they have 350 kitesurfing boards to
serve about 3,000 students a year.
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Moskito started his pioneering
work in 2004 as a school instructor
on Praia do Preá. He used two-line
kites, which were very hard and
even dangerous to handle and
give classes. He says, “it was a real
pressure, because we did not have
the “bar depower” (the device to
decrease the power in the kite). They were followed
later by four-line kites, safety systems, and other
devices that increased considerably instructors and
students’ safety.
The concern with safety and the pleasure in practicing
kitesurfing have always been part of their philosophy
of work. That is perhaps the secret to his success and
that of his company, which is always well positioned
in the market.
In the beginning, risk was a present reality, but as
safety systems evolved and there was a real revolution
in the sport.
According to Alexandre, equipment has changed
completely in the last 15 years. We can say that the
name “kitesurf” is the same, but the sport is different; it
is a much more dynamic and safer sport, with a huge
range of models and equipment with sail area ranging
from 02 to 19 square meters.
“Nowadays, people can start kitesurfing at the age six,
but sexagenarians and people of all ages can also do
it, because of the methods we thoroughly developed in
our school. Thank God, our accident rate has dropped
| Jericoacoara. O paraíso é aqui
to almost zero, and the amount of people returning
to visit us grows every year, and that show our
commitment to teaching and particularly our concern
with the safety of our students”, says Moskito.
KNOW MORE: HISTORY OF KITESURFING
According to reports, the first attempts to use a kite
to enjoy the strength of the winds was in the 1970s.
At the time, some people were seen being pulled
by these kites while riding on water skis. In 1977,
Gijsbertus Panhuise received the first patent, using
a kite associated to a windsurfing board. However, it
was only in the early 1980s, that Bill Roeseller, a Boeing
aerodynamicist, and his son Cory, using a kind of rigid
carbon fiber structure kite to pull them on water skis,
showed that this new form of enjoying the wind was
possible.
In 1984, the French brothers Bruno and Dominique
Legaignoux developed an inflatable kite design, which
lowered the weight and allowed them to raise the kite
again when it fell into the water without the help of
others.
In 1985, French windsurfer Manu Bertin, based in the
Maui, in Hawaii, brings the brothers Legaignoux’s
inflatable kites, and it was such a revolution that he
is even considered the inventor of kiteboard. The first
boards specifically designed for the sport were also
developed at this time.
The sport developed, and in 2000, the first Kiteboard
Pro World Tour was organized. The series of events
took place in Cape Verde, the Dominican Republic,
France, and ended up in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil).
Christopher Tasti, from France, and Stephanie Gamble,
from New Zealand, were the first world champions in
the category. This was also the year the sport landed
in Brazil.