Following my good day flying yesterday, I didn’t expect to get any flying in for the rest of the week.
However the winds came up again today, and were even a little stronger than yesterday. I felt very fortunate, as I had finally made a fuzzy tail for my FlatBoxNo.8 kite from the Oregon Kitemakers Retreat in 2006, designed and taught by my friend Ralf Maserski.
The kite had originally come with a drogue tail, but I had never had much luck flying it that way. This year (again at OKR) Robert Brasington was teaching a class using the same materials, so I scrounged up some scraps that matched the colors in my FlatBox and whipped up a new fuzzy tail the night I got home from the event.
The next day I went down in front of the local beachfront casino, and was fortunate that there was about 3mph of wind . That was just enough to get the kite into the air, but not enough to tie it down and get pictures. I had to wait a while for for a dry day with stronger winds, I really didn’t want to deal with wet, sandy tails.
My wait was certainly worthwhile, the tail worked wonderfully in a bumpy 18mph wind at the most popular beach access in Lincoln City. I won’t want to fly that particular kite often in such strong winds, but it’s always nice to know you have a generous wind range.
I was running some errands, didn’t have my full kite bag, and the night’s Boy Scout meeting was sneaking up quickly, so I fiddled with the adjustments on this kite, took the pictures above, and got my butt off the beach.
I really would have liked to stick around and see how much of yesterday’s elation could carry over, but life was catching up with me, so I ran to try and stay ahead of it.