Adelaide Kite Festival 2015

The biggest kites, north of the jetty

Of course, we also got around on the sandy beach, taking plenty of photos and video from that perspective. As usual, a very wide variety of craft were floating about, giving the public an education on the breadth and depth of modern kite-making!

This year, we graduated to flying on the north side of the jetty, since I had become a member of AKFA (Adelaide Kite Flyers Association). Our Multi-Dowel designs were large enough to not look out of place over there. All the same, there were no rules on kite size. In fact, some of the most interesting designs this year were relatively small ones!

The public flying area to the south of the jetty was alive with smaller kites. Occasionally, a mishap would occur, sending a colorful piece of ripstop nylon drifting through the registered-flyers' area. Sometimes it was with nylon line attached and sometimes not.

Sunday also turned out well, although we didn't attend. Then the wild weather hit on Monday. There were gale-force gusts and buckets of hail!

MBK Multi-Dowel Barn Door

We arrived around midday and set up our little throw-down tent on the sand. Young Aren was tasked with filling sand bags while Dad walked back to the car ... soon to return with an armful of Multi-Dowel kites plus the #2 Carbon Diamond, a 2-m (7-ft.) -span design with Tyvek house-wrap sail.

The photos in this section were not taken on the day, but give a closeup view of the kites mentioned.

First in the air was the Multi-Dowel Barn Door. The big kite was very straightforwardly let up to around 300 feet on my hose-reel-mounted 200-pound Dacron line. A sturdy calico shopping bag, a third full of sand, was adequate to hold the tailless kite in the fairly smooth 8- to 12-kph breeze. Weaving gently from side to side and sometimes straightening up in slightly fresher periods, the barn door was slightly downwind of most of the biggest festival kites.

That was one done; there were a few more to go! Now it was time to spend a few minutes with family in our little home-base on the sand, before wandering off to take photos and the odd video.

I was determined this year to get some KAP images of the festival. Although the barn door is a good reliable workhorse for aerial photography, I chose the Carbon Diamond to hoist my bamboo-skewer rig over the Semaphore sand. Besides being very steady in flight, this diamond also allows the KAP rig to hang just 15 m (50 ft.) from the kite, with no stability problems. This is unlike other kites of mine, which require the rig to be hung 30 m (100 ft.) from the lifter kite!

Again using a calico shopping-bag as a sand anchor, a 100-pound line was laid out and the kite rigged. Next came attaching the suspension lines to the flying line and inserting the camera. After setting up the photo sequence and pressing the shutter button, it was time to launch the diamond and carefully let the KAP cradle rise away.

MBK Multi-Dowel Diamond

Soon, there it was, the camera a little black dot in the sky to people watching from the jetty. It was capturing all the action from over 250 feet above the beach.

Son Aren's next task was to remind me every 10 or 15 minutes to take down the camera and tweak the direction. In this way, over several flights, 90% of all the activity on the ground and in the air was covered.

In the meantime, we walked around and got to meet a few notable kite people. This included a Japanese kite-master who was very approving of the way my Multi-Dowel Barn Door looked and flew. It was sort of refreshing really, considering the decidedly homespun look of most of my kites! Modern designer-kites are so hi-tech and arty in comparison.

Finally, it was decided to put just one more kite up. It seemed prudent to try a short line length this time, as the sky was getting crowded! So, the dark-blue Multi-Dowel Diamond was secured on a short 100-pound line, upwind of the other two. A drogue was added too, just to be on the safe side.

During the afternoon the wind gradually freshened until it was gusting to just over 20 kph at shoulder height. With the ideal weather, all three kites behaved themselves immaculately the whole time they were up. The Carbon Diamond needed a small bridle adjustment to stop it hanging left, toward the very big kites. Then it tended ever so slightly to the right, but that wasn't a problem at all.

Around 4:30 pm, we took all of our kites down, having been part of possibly one of the best festival days ever. There was such great weather this time for the Adelaide Kite Festival 2015!