Kitesurfing Lake Garda - Wind Riders

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Dubble action; morning and afternoon sessions!

23. July

This week the wind is like it should be every single week; good wind in the morning and good wind in the afternoon! At 7 am the wind is already strong enough to go out, and also this morning two guys were waiting to go with us on the water. Willy with his own North kite, and Tom who continued his test lesson. First we dropped Willy, who couldn’t wait to go out and try his new kite. Unfortunately the bar was a shitty second hand bar, and it wasn’t easy to work with. Afterwards Mika repaired it, and hopefully it will work now. Nevertheless Willy had a good session riding downwind on the beautiful Lake Garda with a nice morning sun.
Tom went into the water for the first time and he did so well! The steering was no problem for him at all and he controlled the kite perfectly. After 2 hours his energy was gone, and also the wind got less so we decided to go back and have a long lunch break.

At 1 pm our new students arrived, Stefan and Toni. It was the second lesson for both of them and they tried to manage the upwind bodydragging with and without board. The wind was really consistent and stabile, so it was an easy exercise and after half an hour they were both ready to practice the waterstart. Keep your body small and stand above your board!!! After yelling that order for 5 times they both made a great waterstart and after crashing a couple of times they made lots of meters standing on their board. Stefan was happy and also really exhausted, and Toni was full of adrenaline and didn’t stop smiling!

The wind was only getting stronger so after Mika dropped us at the harbor, she went out again together with Sergio. The moment I’m writing this they’re still on the water, but I’m sure they’ll enjoy J

Dutch power!

Yesterday I had a day filled with Italian students. My Italian vocabulair has gotten a lot bigger. “Malaserre”, “Goiko”, and some bad words I do not want to write down here.

In the morning the wind wasn’t too good. But the water was warm and perfectly flat for wakeboarding. Normally people crash a couple of times before they get up on the wakeboard. Well, not the Italian boys. All got up the first time…

To make it a little bit more difficult I told them to start with there other foot in front. That was a lot more difficult. So what do you do when you think that your teacher is not watching…. you make a 180..
After that the first jumps were made and the arms were tired we went back to the shore.

In the afternoon we had some more Italians… and thanks god a lot more wind.
Nicole and William were cosistently riding in both directions! Gaicomo made his first long rides and is totally stoked on kitesurfing now. Lorenzo took of to the other side of the lake. When he came back we had to hear stories about upwind riding, turning, jumping, kiteloops… well you know… the whole package..

After 4 hours of pushing the limits and enjoying the great wind we went back. I learned some more Italian and my Italian students had a great time kitesurfing:)

Today I took Mirjam and Rik out. After teaching all these italians is was great to have some Dutch people again.

Italians listen to this: A Dutch girl pumps up a kite 3 times faster than you all! Yeahh Mirjam we Dutch girls got the power:)
Mirjam made her first water start. Ed was for the first time with a board in the water and was doing some bodydragging with the board in the hand and some waterstarts. Rik was doing some riding. When the wind dropped he trained starting the kite whitout wind. Not easy but possible with the Kahoona.. And he practised some more riding with light wind. It is hard work but when you stay up on the board is worth it.
Manuel also worked the kite pretty hard and had a few good go’s.

Hopefully a bit more wind tomorrow:)

Kitesurf…sempre buono!

ciao a tutti….

in diretta dal sailing i tre migliori studenti della windriders: Manuel, William e Lorenzo.

Ormai solo dopo 4 lezioni grazie alla nostra maestra preferita la super Muuuuikaaa siamo diventati dei pro…o quasi! = )

Sabato e domenica ci sapettano ancora due lezioni per imparare a curvare…e vista la nostra bravura sicuramente a saltare!!!

Wind Riders is based at the Leonardo da Vince beach.

We are loving our new base. Our students park for free at the hotel. The boat is 1 minute away from the school in the private harbour and all our kites and boards are in the surf box:D

Today after 3 days of clouds and North wind we finally had some sun and south wind again. The students did great today. Lisa was riding for kilometers on Flip. Alessio and Leandro from the sailing bar made their first body drag downwind. They specially liked to crash their kite and practises the relaunching. (always useful to practise). Daria made some perfect upwind bodydrags and is ready on to go on the board tomorrow. Eric made his first turns and will make his first jumnps tomorrow. Marco made some waterstarts and will be riding some more meters the next lesson.

At the end of the day the wind was still good, so I thought it was a good idea to show of my skill in a shorty. Crashing and swimming in the lake with a shorty is still pretty cold. Next time i will wear a wetsuit again…

Adventure on lake garda

There is a group of 5 italian boys from Riva that are learning kitesurfing with us. Saturday they had there first lesson. Manuel is the only one speaking English and he translates the words I do not know in Italian. These guys are so much fun to teach! The first lesson they all reached the goals: downwind bodydragging and relaunching the kite. Andrea did an upwind bodydrag without getting the theorie of it. At the end the wind dropped and they were swimming for a while. The lake is getting warmer, so after the lesson they jumped in again for fun!

We are really enjoying it to teach them and we were looking forward to sunday afternoon. The wind didn’t look too good but it picked up. I had 4 of them doing upwind bodydraggin in the water, when the motor of my boat stopped. I didn’t no why but maybe the level of gasoline was too low. After one minute Alexandro, the teacher of the school in Navene, drove by. Alltough I am normally very scared of him I managed to get his spare benzine. I think in Italian he told me how stupid I was to fill the tank not enough… or something like that.
I hope that this extra benzine would solve the problem. But it didn’t! The engine still did not start. I coached all the guys back to the boat. Only William was too far away. So I took a board and kitesurfed to him to tell him to bodydrag to the boat. He managed to do it:) So I was with 5 Italians floating on the water. I called some teacher from the Navene school for help. And after some time Alexandro took my students and Christiaan rescued me and the boat to the harbour of Malcesine. There we found out that the engine had a big problem. No way it was going to bring us back to Limone. My students were brought to the beach of Navene. I was in the harbour, so I was worrying my head of about them. They are the best students ever, they found me! But how to get to limone?
Alexandro offered to bring us back with his mega RIB. This was a very nice surprise because normally all I understand from his Italian are some bad words and angry looks. I was pretty sure he hates me for some reason. His boat is very huge and has 225 hp. so in no time we were back.. We waved our rescuers goodbye and walked back to the school. After a pizza and two beer we decided it was an adventurous day The next day I brought the boat to Garda to the Yamaha dealer. A few days later it was fixed! Great! Some new parts and some cleaning did the job!

Thanks Max, Chris and Alex from kiteclub Navene!

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