By John Streit
Correspondent
On a recent hot and windy Thursday afternoon, a group of men stood at the top of the 45th Street beach access at the Oceanfront, waiting.
The ocean revealed a choppy, 3- to 4-foot swell, and a southerly wind blew at 15 to 20 mph.
Close, yet so far from being perfect kiteboarding conditions. The handful of kiteboarders needed the wind to shift a few degrees to the east, but like most other water sports, Mother Nature made the final call: Today would not be their day.
Virginia Beach is home to a tight-knit scene of hard-core kiteboarders, and the 3-mile strand between Fort Story and the Cavalier Hotel at 42nd Street is their stomping ground. The sport is still in its infancy, especially in Virginia Beach, which doesn't boast a commercial equipment retailer or optimum conditions.
"We're not exactly the first place you think of when some one says 'kiteboarding destination,' mainly because we're in the shadow of the Outer Banks" said Glenn Stevenson, one of the old salts of Beach kiteboarding. "... But that doesn't mean we don't have our share of good wind and riding venues."
Combining aspects of windsurfing, surfing and wakeboarding with a power source - the kite - the sport has only been around for about 15 years since it emerged from Maui, Hawaii.
It didn't find its way to Virginia Beach until Ted Bautista, a now-42-year-old lifelong board rider, noticed someone kiteboarding in the background of a windsurfing video while attending a surf industry expo in Florida in the late 1990s.
"I would always talk about what it would be like to wakeboard in the surf," said Bautista, who was a competitive wakeboarder at the time. "Kiteboarding allowed for that to happen. From there, I knew it had potential to be a popular sport."
Bautista began calling around the country to find out more and how to get started. His search ended when he contacted Trip Foreman, founder of the Outer Banks-based company REAL Kiteboarding. Foreman introduced Bautista and a handful of his friends to the proper equipment, and Bautista's love affair with the new sport blossomed.
Due to the geographical proximity to the Outer Banks - which touts perfect kiteboarding conditions with ample wind, shallow water in the sounds and consistent surf - the sport never exploded in popularity locally. Both Bautista and Stevenson estimate fewer than 20 people participate in kiteboarding on a serious basis at the Beach.
That doesn't stop newcomers from trying, however, which presents unique dangers from other water sports due to the kite's rigging and wind-generated power. That's why Stevenson created the Virginia Association of Kiteboarders, a loosely tied group of enthusiasts whose goal is to spread safety awareness and to encourage people who are interested in trying the sport to receive formal instruction before taking to the water.
The association's Web site has an extensive list of "do's and don'ts," the most glaring of which is to avoid riding in front of the tourist strip between 1st and 42nd streets.
"Riding there is vehemently discouraged during the warm season," Stevenson said. "High-rise condos and wall-to-wall beach towels is a recipe for disaster."
John Streit, 639-4805,
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Kiter rescue tourist's caught in rip current
I posted the above because we have rescued numerous tourist caught in rip currents that were out of the lifeguards reach. If it wasn't for us on those occasions you might have been reading about them in the paper. We are a responsible group that also cleans up the trash on the beach left by tourist every few days if not daily. Skim boarders and surfers have the most problems with bystanders. In over 10 years not one kiting incident has happened involving a bystander. You should not worry about anyone getting hurt, kiters are very skilled, we can turn on a dime, stop immediately and can completely stop the pull from the kite. Some people might get nervous when we come in to land. We have a strap we pull that can stop the kite from pulling, that is why you can see us standing on the beach with a kite in the air. Remember that surfers crowd the surf zone up and down the beach everyday. There are very few of us kiters in Virginia Beach (for every kiter there are probably 200 surfers) and mother nature only give us a FEW days out of the month to kiteboard. We don't own or claim any part of the water, we share it with everyone and sometimes a month can go by without us being in
Dangerous fools
spoil this sport for the rest of the decent guys.
On three separate occasions this summer I have witnessed "kiters" unfurling their kites directly in the middle of the throngs of beachgoers. This is EXTREMELY dangerous. These guys (at least the ones that I watched) could barely control their gear. Their fully extended kites and lines came perilously close to swinging into children playing in the surf. In another event near the Lesnar Bridge, I watched as a kiter actually struck a local's umbrella before he could reign in his kite.
The irresponsibility doesn't stop there. Once these guys are in the water in the North End, they seem to think that they belong directly in the beach break (where all of the tourists and children are playing). Again, I have personally watched these guys weave down the beach from about 100 yards offshore all the way back in to the sand, in and out of children, surfers, and swimmers the entire time.
Bottom line: these guys need to be regulated just like surfers and jet skis. Mark my words, if there isn't some regulation, in the next year you're going to be reading in the Pilot about some kid or tourist who was seriously injured by one of
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it's the waaaabulance!
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i'm sorry that a few ruins the image for the rest. maybe if they weren't texting while kiting none of this would have happened.