PRICE OF FLYING HIGH: 'DOLLYMOUNT HAS improved so much. A few years ago it was like Mad Max down here with cars tearing up the beach. You notice the difference?" asks Francois Colussi, proprietor of the Pure Magic kitesurfing shop on Clontarf Road in Dublin. I remember all right. The kids, and I was one of them, learned to drive on Dollymount, weaving around the windbreaks and toddlers of day-trippers, the whipped ice-cream vans. The L-plates weren't a patch on the joyriders, either.
Dollymount looks so grown up now, cars neatly penned in, uncrowded despite the big blue sky. Even though the wind is “super-light” (you have to imagine it with a French accent), Colussi has agreed to introduce me to kitesurfing, or flysurfing as it’s sometimes called. This is just one type of power kiting, brother to buggying and landboarding (kite plus special skateboard), and sister to surfing. He says he won’t be taking me near the water, yet – I would need to do a full training session – and I’m secretly relieved after a story I heard recently.
My friend, newlywed but already a “surfing widow”, was delighted when her husband Stephen discovered kitesurfing, as it dramatically reduced the number of weekends that he was heading west in search of perfect waves. You can kitesurf in the city, at Dollymount (which is perfect because it’s big and shallow), Burrow Beach in Sutton and Sandymount.
However, Stephen had a bit of an incident when he headed to Sandymount one Friday evening after work. He describes how “I had a 40-minute blast before the wind dropped completely and so too my kite. The wind had gone, as had the other kiters. I was packing up my gear when the wind picked up again and changed direction, blowing off shore . . . it took me 30 minutes to swim back to the sandbar, keeping Martello Tower in my sights. When I finally got to shore, I rang the non-emergency number for the coastguard to let them know I was safe, it was just my kite in the water. Then I got in the car and started to follow it. A man walking his dog had given me his number, he asked me to call him to let him know I got home safely. It finally came in at the west pier in Dún Laoghaire. Apparently, the coastguard got several reports from concerned callers. I should have released the kite sooner rather than trying to stay with it. I was so exhausted I slept until 3pm the next day. I love kitesurfing, but I’d tell this story to emphasise for newbies and experienced kiters alike the potential dangers of kiting.”
Colussi echoes this caution. “Anyone can just buy a kite on eBay and go out in the water. But it’s not safe to do that. People should learn about safety and be aware of the hazards.” Colussi’s caramel tan and blonde whiskers can’t disguise his professional focus when he says co-operation and communication are key to the promotion of the sport. Here is someone who, with the help of his business partner, Catherine Etienne, spotted some potential and jumped on it. Now they make a living out of spending time on the beach. He continues: “In our classes, the first thing we do is ask people to check the conditions. What way is the tide going? And the wind?”
I get the reins to my first kite and he shows me how to draw flat figures of eight in the sky. Even though this is the smallest model and despite the light breeze (which is picking up now), the pull of it is enough to drag me a few feet, and the translucent jellyfish embedded in the sand are very distracting. So Colussi gets me to sit and then lie down (such a gentleman, he puts his T-shirt on the ground so my top doesn’t get soaked) and then I am flying my kite lying down; this way I can learn without getting blown away. He suggests I close my eyes so that I can really get the feel of it. When the kite is directly overhead at noon, it’s easy to manage, but moving it into the “powerzone”, to three o’clock or nine o’clock, is a bit tricky. It’s important to be calm and not to steer, he says.
Then we move on to a bigger kite, and this time instead of two handles, there is a bar. This is the kite used for buggying and landboarding. I really need to lean back and dig my heels in to control this baby.
Finally, I get strapped into the harness so I can have a go of the kitesurfing kite. The innovation which gave the sport its water wings was making a part of the kite inflatable. The kite has a span of four metres (but they can be up to 12m) and looks like a dragon’s wing. I can’t hold this one by myself at all; it would whisk me away if I wasn’t being “doubled”.
As I leave the beach, I am already hooked on the natural power of kiting and dying to take the next step, like the beginners’ group who have been training all afternoon and are now kitted out, heading for the water, to practise bodydragging, without a board. The wind has picked up and kitesurfers are racing along the shore. Super-cool.
PRICE OF FLYING HIGH:
Pure Magic currently has a kitesurfing starter pack offer of €1,119 for a kite, harness, board and pump. The F-One package is a board and kite offer for €1,249. A harness on its own costs between €80 and €180. For the Irish climate you will need at least a five-millimetre wetsuit, and these cost from €150 to €300.
Pure Magic also offers kitesurfing lessons and gift vouchers. A three-hour session costs €135, two sessions is €250 and four sessions costs €425. A private two-hour session costs €160. You can rent all the gear for a half day for €85.
A landboarding kite (for buggying and kiteboarding) will cost from €40 to €300. The entry level landboard is €139. Protective gear includes body armour for €115, pads for €28 and helmet for €24. See www.kitesurfing.ie.