Riding Waves: Trading Kite Power for Swell

Your first turns on a wave, not just over it

Where you should be starting from

Flat water has taught you all it can. You ride both tacks without thinking, go upwind properly, and your hands fly the kite while your eyes are elsewhere. That last one is not optional here. On a wave your eyes belong on the water ahead, and any kite skill still needing a look will fail at the worst moment.

Pick side-shore wind and small waves. Waist to head high, 15 to 20 knots (28 to 37 km/h), side or side-onshore. Side-shore is the wave rider's wind because it lets you travel along the wave rather than at the beach. Straight onshore pins you against the sand. Offshore is a rescue waiting to happen. Start on a day that looks almost too small; a 1m (3ft) wave teaches the same lesson as a 2m one.

The concept: two engines, and you're swapping

On flat water the kite is the engine. You generate speed by flying it, edge against it and go where you point. It's the thing pulling you along, and you keep it in the top half of the window where the pull is manageable. On a wave, gravity takes that job and the kite becomes a sail.

A wave is a moving slope. Point down it and you accelerate for free, exactly as a surfer does. Your kite's job changes completely. It stops supplying power and starts holding you upright, keeping your lines tight, waiting for you to need it again. That's the whole discipline, and it takes most riders several sessions to believe.

Which is why the kite goes low and forward. Send it toward 10 or 2, ahead of you along the direction you're travelling, and leave it. A kite parked at 12 lifts you off the face, kills the pressure through your feet and drags you over the back. A kite forward and low sits out of the way, keeps enough tension to steady you, and lets the wave push. Take one thing to the water: down the line, not overhead.

"The wave is the engine now. Your kite's only job is to stay out of the way and keep the lines honest."

Phase by phase, your first wave

Preparation: get outside and pick one. Ride out past the break, turn, and wait for a wave with a shoulder you can see, one that won't close out in front of you. Look for the part still standing up rather than already broken. Riding whitewater teaches nothing except that whitewater is bumpy.

Initiation: match its speed before it arrives. Ride ahead of the wave at roughly its pace, angling slightly downwind, and let it catch you rather than chasing it. As the swell reaches you, the tail lifts and the board starts to run on its own. That moment, the board going light and picking up speed with no input from you, is the wave taking over. Sheet out a touch. Your instinct will be to pull the bar in and add kite power, which unhooks you from the wave entirely.

Commitment: the bottom turn is the trick. Ride down the face, then at the bottom drive a long carve back toward the breaking part of the wave. Weight on your back foot, look where you're going, lean into it. Turn too early and you're back up the face before it's steepened; turn too late and it breaks on your head. The right feel is a loading through your legs at the bottom of the arc, like a swing, then a slingshot back up the face with speed you didn't ask the kite for.

Execution: ride the pocket, hands quiet. Back up near the breaking section, stay just ahead of the whitewater in the steepest part of the face. Your kite is still forward and low, doing nothing. Steer with your feet and your eyes. Every input you give the bar here is a mistake you'll feel as a jerk in your riding.

Recovery: kite first, then everything else. When the wave shuts down or you fall, the kite is your only priority. Get it to 12 and sort yourself out. A rider fussing with a lost board while their kite sits in the impact zone is about to have a longer swim.

The impact zone, and how not to live there

Whitewater is the enemy of line tension. A broken wave pushes you shoreward faster than your kite can pull you out, so your lines go slack, the kite falls, and now you're a swimmer in the break with a kite downwind. That's how wave sessions turn bad, and it starts with slack lines, not the wave.

Get through it, don't sit in it. Riding out, aim for the channel where the waves aren't breaking. If you must cross whitewater, cross it with speed and the kite low and forward to keep tension on. Hit it slow and side-on and it will knock you flat.

If you're getting worked, ditch the board. Boards float and wash in; kites in the impact zone get pounded and torn. Let the board go, keep your kite flying, and body-drag out the side. Wave riders lose boards routinely and think nothing of it.

Directional or twintip

You can ride waves on a twintip, and you should try it first. It's the board you know, and it lets you learn where to put the kite and how a wave feels without adding a new stance. What it won't do is hold a rail line on a steep face. Twintips are symmetrical and flat, so they skip and slide where a wave board bites.

A directional turns the wave into the point. It has a nose and a tail, real rocker and a surfboard's rails, so it holds a line through a bottom turn and carves rather than skids. The trade is that you must transition properly at each end, and ride it toe-side or switch your feet. A directional makes the wave riding easier and everything else harder for a few sessions.

The stance is the real change. Your weight lives over the back foot through turns and shifts forward to drive down the line, which is surfing, not kiting. If you've surfed at all, this arrives fast.

When it goes wrong

The wave keeps passing underneath you. You're too slow, or too far up the face when it arrives. Angle further downwind and build speed before it gets to you. Waves don't wait, and you can't accelerate onto one from a standstill.

You get pulled off the top and over the back. Your kite drifted up to 12 and it's lifting you off the face. This is the default failure, pure habit from flat water. Check the kite is down at 10 or 2 before you commit, then leave your hands alone.

Your bottom turn washes out and you slide. Either you're on a twintip asking for a rail it doesn't have, or you turned with your shoulders instead of your weight. Drive through the back foot, look up the face at where you want to end up, and let the board follow your eyes.

Your lines go slack and the kite falls. The wave accelerated you toward the kite. Steer it forward and low, keep it moving through the window rather than parked, and if the whitewater has you, get the kite moving before it drops. A slowly weaving kite holds pressure a dead-parked one loses.

Next session, one focus: put the kite at 10 or 2 as you drop in and do not move your hands until the wave is done. One wave, hands frozen. It will feel wrong and it will work. When it clicks, the classifieds are the cheapest way into a second-hand directional, and the how-to library covers the transitions you'll need on one.

Do I need a smaller kite for waves?

Usually slightly, yes, because you want less power and better drift, not more grunt. A kite that sits forward and low without hauling you off the face is worth more here than one with a big low end. Kites that drift well, staying pressurised as you ride toward them, make wave riding much easier.

Straps or strapless on a directional?

Straps to start. They keep your feet located while you learn where they should be, and a wipeout doesn't cost you the board. Strapless is the purer version and the harder one, and it's much easier once your bottom turn already works with your feet held in place.

Can I learn wave riding in onshore wind?

You can ride, but you'll learn slowly. Onshore wind pushes the same way as the wave, so you're constantly running out of face and ending up in whitewater near the beach. One good side-shore day teaches more than five onshore ones.

How small is small enough for a first go?

Waist high is plenty. The mechanics of dropping in, setting the kite forward and driving a bottom turn are identical at waist high and double overhead; only the consequences change. Learn the sequence where a mistake means a tumble rather than a hold-down.