Pair of Diamonds

by Greg
(Southsea, U.K.)

So over the years I’ve made a few of Tim’s easy to follow plans. A dowel Rok, Box, Dopero, several skewer kites and recently a soft sled.

These were the first diamonds I’d attempted and I was amazed with how quick they were to throw together. I work on yachts so I’m lucky enough to have access to old spinnaker cloth, so I followed Tim’s plans just using rip stop nylon. I don’t sew anything, just taped it all together with spinnaker repair tape.

Anyway my son Isaac is 4, and likes to get involved with anything I’m doing so I suggested he decorate a kite and we could build it together. We had a great time getting creative with the sharpies, then headed straight out to my local kiting spot in Southsea in the UK (whilst our big annual kite festival was in full swing).

After strolling round and marvelling at the wonderful colours and shapes filling the sky we decided to add our cloth to the fray. It was a bit windy for the diamonds, I knew that these were light wind kites from the flight reports on here, so I attached some lengthy tails to both kites before launching to try and calm them down a bit.

First Isaac’s kite soared into the blue. I couldn’t quite believe it, it jigged happily in the top of the wind window. No bridle adjustment needed! Full of confidence I launched mine skyward, and it rapidly looped itself back down to earth! A couple of adjustments later and it planted itself next to Isaac’s kite... but you could tell the tails were doing a lot to reign the kites in with the strong wind. I can imagine that dropping the tails in light winds would make for a great session with these diamonds.

I recently bought the soft kite instructions and have already made the soft sled. Its maiden flight will be this weekend wind allowing, so another flight report should soon follow.

Thanks to Tim for another great set of plans, I had a lot of fun making and flying these diamonds with my little dude.

If anyone reading this hasn’t made a kite before, give the diamond a go. It is simple to make and a joy to fly.