Today, we were forecast to have some serious winds. All of the windsurfers were excited about the possibility of having their asses handed to them. Mark, from RedSkyToledo sent an email saying that his ETA was 1pm, so my plan was to go get some video footage of this very windy day's activities. My thought was that I only have a springtime wetsuit and I'm not fond of freezing my ass off, so I'd stay dry, today. I did bring the Beamer 3.6 out just in case I got the nerve to fly it.

Before I left the house, I checked the weather sites and saw that the wind was blowing 20+ with gusts to 30. I got to MBSP at about 12 and found nobody windsurfing. There was one guy setting up his equipment, but he was alone and seemed to be waiting for a buddy (smart no matter how much/little wind there is.) By 12:30 another guy arrived. I didn't know him, either. He sat and talked to the first guy and then the went to the water together. I grabbed the cam-corder and shot some footage of one of them as he went out (I may post that later.) Bored, sitting there by myself with neither Mark nor Ryan on scene, I decided to bust out the Beamer and give it a fly.

I laid the kite out on the beach and started unwinding the lines. Before I could even get the lines completely unwound, the kite had lifted off the ground. Quickly, I let the last two loops of wound string fall (pull) off the handles and I grabbed the handles and guided the kite to the zenith. There, the kite was controllable... sort of. I had put on my kiteboarding vest and harness so that I could "hook in." When I hooked in, I could feel the kite buffeting against the gusts. I steered the yellow monster down to the 3 o'clock position and then made a pass through the edge of the power zone. The kite pulled me across the beach on my feet as if I was water-skiing. Then, I brought the kite back to 12 o'clock and walked back to my starting point. Again, I made a few swoops through the power zone and skudded (that's what they call it) across the beach. I was a bit worried because I didn't get a chance to inspect the brake-line connections before the kite went airborne and I thought I'd better check that before I make another pass down the beach. Gingerly, I walked back to the starting point once again. Then, I attempted to land the kite down wind. I don't know if I've ever experienced anything like what happened next.

The kite began to spin as it approached the ground. There I stood with the wind directly at my back and the kite in the middle of the power zone spinning like a clock with a hyper battery. After a moment, I was able to get the kite to stop spinning and I brought it to 12:00 again. I was scared. Another attempt at landing the kite resulted in a similar experience. Except, this time, the kite made a fast pass through the strongest part of the power zone. I managed to keep my feet below and in front of me for about 20 feet (I looked at the drag marks afterwards.) Then, I did my super-man impression, again. I was dragged for another 30 feet or so with my pants filling with sand as I scraped along the beach. Eventually, I had the sense to drop one of the handles and grab just the brake line on the other handle. This brought the kite to the ground in a heap where it flapped and sputtered until it ended up in the weeds by the rock-wall.

I spent the next 20 minutes catching my breath while I attempted, unsuccessfully, to untangle my kite lines. I gave up on that and wound the lines around the handles and threw the kite in the back of the truck. With my tail between my legs, I drove home.

When I got home, I took a look at the wind report for that area during the time that I was flying the kite. It would appear that the wind picked up somewhere along the line. Had I known it was blowing that hard, I would have never unpacked the kite today.

After resting a bit, I took the lines off the Beamer and the handles. I was able to untangle the lines in the back yard fairly quickly. When I removed the break lines, I noticed that they were connected to the last knot... the weakest position. Normally, on a windy day, I'd like them to be on the third or fourth knot. I learned two things today; 1) It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature, and b) If I get warm weather winds in the 30+ mph range, the 3.6 beamer is too much kite... even for kitesurfing. I'm guessing that about 20mph is the max for a flight with that kite.