Dom's Kiting Pages

Light wind at the BKSA Watergate 2010 this weekend?

The forecast is not looking good, but experience and evidence on the ground is telling us otherwise. Right now, about mid April time, I’d guess that we experience the greatest temperature differential between land and sea.

The sea is still cold enough that five duck dives in a row will give you an ice cream headache, but find a sheltered spot inland and it’s lovely, and you can get burnt now too. As all kiters know, this differential adds up to a sea breeze, or thermal wind, and we’ve been getting some very good ones in Newquay over the last few days.

It’s not just the temperature difference that’s driving these thermals though; an important local factor is in effect all week and that’s what’s making the real difference, and that it is Northerly Winds.

North winds in Cornwall mean sunshine, which in itself is good for thermal wind generation, but perhaps more importantly, the thermal wind direction is also from the North. Thus, when at around 1pm – 4pm the sun is shining strong, the land is at its warmest and the sea is still just as cold, the thermal kicks in.

We don’t get much in the way of strength with our thermic winds down here but if you’ve got a light wind of 8knots or so blowing, a further 5-8knots on top will make all the difference.

I went to the beach today on the 8knots forecast, anticipating this. I got it a little wrong however as I took a 12m when I could have used a 9m no problem. I’ll be going again tomorrow, taking the 9m as well as the 12m, because you never know. Here is a little video to show you the conditions we had today; not great for surfing but it would have been perfect for course racing and I was making long reaches out to sea.

So I think the BKSA Watergate event could be a lot of fun this weekend.