Imperial Kitesurf: Zero2Hero
The beginners’ weekend, as reported by Leon Vanstone
On the weekend of the 27th October, Imperial Kitesurf hit the Student Kitesufing (SKA) Zero2Hero weekend to teach our beginners how to kitesurf.
But apparently some of you fools have been living in a cave, with your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears, because you don’t know what kitesurfing is. The wiki has this to say: kitesurfing or kiteboarding is an adventure surface water sport that has been described as combining wakeboarding, windsurfing, surfing, paragliding, and gymnastics into one extreme sport. Essentially you harness yourself to a giant sail and bounce across the surface of the water doing crazy tricks.
Right, now that’s finished, I can tell you guys about the sick weekend we had. The event was in Wales. Now some of you might not have been to Wales, but essentially it’s like going back in time. Your phone gets no reception, GPS doesn’t work and everything’s cold. The sort of cold your grandfather boasts about. But I digress. So we arrived on the Friday evening to register and for a few chilled beers. After some socialising we hit the hay for an 8am start on Saturday.
Saturday comes and we eat our bacon sarnies and head for the beach at 9am. The parties already rocking and the Beach Party Live guys already have their custom fitted Land Rover Defender blasting out solid tune after solid tune from their hench sound system. A little bit of health and safety later (because concussion is all too easy in this sport) finds us down on the beach and cracking out the kites. The beginners immediately went off and started learning the basics of flying a kite.
For the pros it was time to hit the water. Crushingly the wind was off-cross. Given no one wants to be blown out to sea few went into the water that day. For the rest of us we had no resort but to kiteboard around the beach and play ‘super sporty board sports and water sports sports day’ in between. Volleyball and beers anyone? At one point the police showed up, but our party was so rocking they asked us to turn it up. But that’s just kite life.
Later on that night saw some awesome party. The sound system from the Land Rover was now in the communal hall and the Halloween decorations were out. Given this event was cross uni, the ratios were excellent, and with the octobong (5 gallon, 8 way funnel) at hand to ensure drunkenness everyone was getting friendly. There were heros. There were casualties. But that’s just kite life.
The Sunday session started an hour later (thank fuck) and found us on the beach with little memory of the night before, massive hang overs and a jigsaw puzzle of photos. Given no one really seemed to know entirely what happened we decided it best to move on and the beginners got back to work mastering their kite work.
Thankfully the wind had switched on-cross and us pros got into the water. Nothing cures a hangover like jumping into the ocean. Especially when that jump is 3-5m into the air and back again, but that’s just kite life. All in all an excellent weekend. You all missed out. UNACCEPTABLE. Be sure not to miss our next beginners weekend (23-25 November) check us out on Facebook for more details or email kitesurf@ic.ac.uk for details.
