KAPing
Egmond aan Zee is the nearest coast to home, about a 300km drive. The strand is wide enough so I can fly my kites without people having to duck all the time or make a run for it. I’ve always had a few large kites, with the idea of hoisting a camera up into the air to take pictures, but until now never got round to it.
The discipline is called KAPing (Kite Aerial Photography).
Before the holiday I’d bought a camera rig and to carry it a large 2.5 metre Japanese Rokkoku “eagle of paradox” (Rokkoku means 6 sided, see picture to the right).
As soon as we had arrived I was like a kid. I just could not wait. I had looked at the weather forecast for the week and it was not ideal, therefore the hectic to get to the beach ASAP.
H wanted a lay down after the trip, and so I took all I could carry and made a bee line for the beach. The wind was in no way strong enough to launch the eagle kite. I went for one of my smaller Rokkoku kites but I was having difficult getting it up in the air, there are bow lines spanning the back top and bottom to create a curvature depending on the strength of the wind.
Rokkoku kites are single liners and usually have no tail, they are used in Japan for fighting - which wasn’t my primary reason for buying them. But just in case I could entice H to have ago I got two small ones, one each.
I decided to get my old Para foil kite up, as I knew it would take the camera rig (see picture left). It looks like the ones used for surfing – but of course smaller. I added a tail for stability and without any load it was holding its own in the sky. The wind was not that reliable as it kept flouting, but what the heck, I needed to get my 1st. KAPing picture!!.
I fastened the kite to a ground anchor, got the rig and camera started, walked the kite down so that I could attach the rig about half way between the anchor and kite. I let the whole bally thing lose and up it flew.
I could see that the kite was having second thoughts about the extra load and started to swing back and forth while struggling to gain height. This caused the rig in the middle of the line to oscillate asynchrony to the kite. With this erratic behaviour the kite was losing the struggle and started to plunge towards terra firma.
I tried to counteract this downward trend in that I unhocked the line from the anchor and started to hastily back up while trying to keeping an eye on the kite/rig/camera which was getting dangerously close to the cordoned off sand dunes. As I haven’t any built in sonic helpers I promptly fell backwards into the moat of a half demolished abandoned sand castle!
The kite hit the ground; the rig/camera hit the ground and of course so did I. My contribution to the hat trick was slightly more complicated and painful. I didn’t land directly on top of the castle; if I had it would have probably broken my fall by just sitting on it and ending up with a numb bum. No, I managed to skim past it and made first contact with my 115 kg on the outer rim one third around the perimeter, of all the B*** luck!
I badly bruised the small of my back on and around the area of my left kidney; the impact was just like a heavy punch! I did not fall directly on to my spine as I had the sense to try and pivot as I was falling. It got pretty painful over the next few days due to an oedema.
H insisted I have a Dutch doctor look at it. I was prescribed for relief, pepper pain plasters! I think it was cayenne. Did they warm up my back! I also was on codeine which helped somewhat when sleeping. Any turning over in bed meant instant “fullwakeness”, it took almost a week before I could walk and sleep without pain, we decided to add on a few days to the end so that the holiday was not totally ruined.
I didn’t fly any more kites that trip. The only picture I could forage from the sand ridden camera, since then it makes grinding noises when zooming, was the one to the right. The rest of the picture taken were mostly at weird angles and out of focus close-ups of imminent sand dunes al la “Deep Impact”...
The discipline is called KAPing (Kite Aerial Photography).
Before the holiday I’d bought a camera rig and to carry it a large 2.5 metre Japanese Rokkoku “eagle of paradox” (Rokkoku means 6 sided, see picture to the right). As soon as we had arrived I was like a kid. I just could not wait. I had looked at the weather forecast for the week and it was not ideal, therefore the hectic to get to the beach ASAP.
H wanted a lay down after the trip, and so I took all I could carry and made a bee line for the beach. The wind was in no way strong enough to launch the eagle kite. I went for one of my smaller Rokkoku kites but I was having difficult getting it up in the air, there are bow lines spanning the back top and bottom to create a curvature depending on the strength of the wind.
Rokkoku kites are single liners and usually have no tail, they are used in Japan for fighting - which wasn’t my primary reason for buying them. But just in case I could entice H to have ago I got two small ones, one each.
I decided to get my old Para foil kite up, as I knew it would take the camera rig (see picture left). It looks like the ones used for surfing – but of course smaller. I added a tail for stability and without any load it was holding its own in the sky. The wind was not that reliable as it kept flouting, but what the heck, I needed to get my 1st. KAPing picture!!.I fastened the kite to a ground anchor, got the rig and camera started, walked the kite down so that I could attach the rig about half way between the anchor and kite. I let the whole bally thing lose and up it flew.
I could see that the kite was having second thoughts about the extra load and started to swing back and forth while struggling to gain height. This caused the rig in the middle of the line to oscillate asynchrony to the kite. With this erratic behaviour the kite was losing the struggle and started to plunge towards terra firma.
I tried to counteract this downward trend in that I unhocked the line from the anchor and started to hastily back up while trying to keeping an eye on the kite/rig/camera which was getting dangerously close to the cordoned off sand dunes. As I haven’t any built in sonic helpers I promptly fell backwards into the moat of a half demolished abandoned sand castle!
The kite hit the ground; the rig/camera hit the ground and of course so did I. My contribution to the hat trick was slightly more complicated and painful. I didn’t land directly on top of the castle; if I had it would have probably broken my fall by just sitting on it and ending up with a numb bum. No, I managed to skim past it and made first contact with my 115 kg on the outer rim one third around the perimeter, of all the B*** luck!
I badly bruised the small of my back on and around the area of my left kidney; the impact was just like a heavy punch! I did not fall directly on to my spine as I had the sense to try and pivot as I was falling. It got pretty painful over the next few days due to an oedema.
H insisted I have a Dutch doctor look at it. I was prescribed for relief, pepper pain plasters! I think it was cayenne. Did they warm up my back! I also was on codeine which helped somewhat when sleeping. Any turning over in bed meant instant “fullwakeness”, it took almost a week before I could walk and sleep without pain, we decided to add on a few days to the end so that the holiday was not totally ruined. I didn’t fly any more kites that trip. The only picture I could forage from the sand ridden camera, since then it makes grinding noises when zooming, was the one to the right. The rest of the picture taken were mostly at weird angles and out of focus close-ups of imminent sand dunes al la “Deep Impact”...
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