Adelaide Kite Festival 2013

Large kite action North of the jetty

Of course, we have not ignored the magnificent kites of the registered flyers completely. See the photo. This shot turned out surprisingly vibrant, considering the miserable lighting conditions of the day. Incidentally, most of these registered-flyers' kites have been seen and photographed by us in previous years. They were flying from north of the jetty as usual.

We arrived at the Adelaide Kite Festival 2013 at about 12:30 pm on Saturday. We had several MBK kites in the trunk (boot) of the car, to be able to fly in various wind speeds. By the time we walked onto the sand and rigged the Dowel Delta, winds were 9.6 kph gusting to 13 kph but had been lighter earlier during the morning. The commentator was noting how this was better for the big kites, north of the jetty.

But the fresher wind was worse for us and our light-wind delta! I rigged the Dowel Delta and put it up briefly. On 3 meters (10 feet) of line, it veered left, veered right, leading edges bending in at the tips. The kite might have survived for a few more minutes but at the risk of snapping the spreader—particularly if we let the pale-orange delta up much higher where the wind tends to be a little stronger.

Whopping great bouncing ball

• several rokkakus
• several multi-keeled sleds and flowforms
• deltas of course
• an interesting complex cellular or two
• the yellow Cody with red top-sail from previous years
• various inflatable sea-creature kites—dolphin, mermaid, blue whale, killer whale, hammerhead shark, manta ray, and others
• that giant tethered ball in the photo, which I carefully captured in mid-bounce off the sand :-)

In addition to these flying craft, and ball, there was much of the usual line laundry from previous years. One in particular is worthy of special mention.

There was an intriguing chain-like structure that rotated continuously in the wind, maintaining its general looping shape, but shifting around with subtlety from moment to moment. It was an aerial belt on invisible pulleys, if you like! This is where a picture, or better yet, a video, would be worth 1,000 words. But sorry, I didn't get it.

At 2:30 pm, the breeze was definitely stronger. It was averaging 11.5 kph with gusts to 17.5 kph when I did a brief check at shoulder height.

A chopper flew past

Finally, 15 or 30 minutes later perhaps, the winds smoothed out in the new direction and freshened up a bit more. Once again, all was sedate up there with all the colorful impressive kites back on show.

We had the small 1-Skewer Sode with a rather long tail which would have coped well with the wind strength, but we decided to go home instead. This was mainly due to the dropping temperature and threat of further rain. Showers could be seen in various directions but mainly to the south, over land and sea.

It was a reasonable kite-watching outing though, with the whole gamut of single liners on show. There was everything from a struggling novelty ship kite to the giant blue whale and Peter Lynn manta ray!

Not all spectators were watching the Adelaide Kite Festival 2013 from the sand. A least a couple might have been viewing the kite cloud from above, in the WestPac rescue helicopter as it flew past.