Launching a Kitesurfing Kite – Which way should you walk when launching your kite?

We all know that when launching our kitesurfing kite, we either need our kite to end up at the 9 o’clock position or the 3 o’clock position. But seeing as the wind and weather are always changing it doesn’t always mean that just because you usually launch on way that it’s always that case. In this short article we will give you the tools to make sure that you always choose the right direction when launching.

Launching a Kitesurfing Kite – Are your feet wet?

The best way to choose which way to move is to get your feet wet. If you are walking toward the water you are immediately doing two things.

1. You are moving away from any obsticles on land.
2. You are moving the kite to the land side, which is safer (albeit counter intuitive)

Launching a Kitesurfing Kite – Why The Kite Points Toward Land

So typically when launching you will get three results.

1. The kite will launch perfeclty, amazing.
2. The kite is underpowered and will drop back toward the launching position, usually allowing you to retry.
3. The kite will power up, cross the wind window and possibly pull you over.

It is option 3 that makes positioning the kite landward much safer. If the launch does go wrong and the kite does power up you want to have the kite pull you into a lovely soft watery landing zone, not the local car park 🙂

Launching a Kitesurfing Kite – Which way is best.

Obviously your choice when launching a kitesurfing kite will depend on a number of factors including wind direction, hazards and a multitude of other things. However if you choose to:

1. Launch with wet feet you are automatically taking yourself towards the water, away from the land and any hard objects that you may hit if things go wrong. Ideally you ant more than two line lengths between you and anything you could hit.
2. You are automatically making the kite sit to landward meaning that the power of the kite if it powers up and crosses the window it will take you into the water.
3. If you fluff the launch and the kite does not cross the window all you have to do is let go of the bar and then try again, rather than rescue your kite from the water.
4. Assuming the kite launch goes well. Once flying, your position under the kite will be much further away from hard objects than if you launch the other way around.

Join our Discord

We have just recently launched a discord for our kitesurfing community, it’s a great place to ask questions. you can find it here: The Hoxton Special – Discord