The Boards of Summer

Kiteboarding

Several hours to the northeast, where the only whitewater pounds in from the Atlantic, a stiff breeze blows damp with the promise of rain beneath a low-hanging gray sky. On a short stretch of sand at the edge of Rehoboth Bay, just outside Dewey Beach, Del., Wayne Hill and Scott Cruise of Northern Virginia are preparing for a lesson in kiteboarding. Hill is working with a trainer kite, a bright green foil about five feet wide, making it dip and dive, his body leaning backward at a 45-degree angle against the pull of the kite. There are bloody scrapes on his legs from the night before, when the trainer kite dragged him across the parking lot.

A 31-foot-long RV is parked at the edge of the beach, its sides intermittently plastered with red stickers declaring a bit of kiteboarding attitude: "Windsurfing has been cancelled," they read. This is the mobile demo and training unit for Dewey Beach-based H2Air Kiteboarding. Its front half is standard RV, with a case of Red Bull (worldwide kiteboarding competition sponsor) on the passenger seat. From its back half, which is equipped with floor-to-ceiling shelves and wide-opening rear doors, H2Air owner Dave Loop, 38, and instructors Garry Menk (also a rep for kiteboarding gear-maker Cabrinha), 31, and Hamish MacDonald (also a professional kiteboarder), 25, are unloading an accumulating array of equipment. There are boards, lines, body harnesses, a compressed-air hose and kites -- though here you must dismiss any connection between the word "kite" and the familiar, diamond-shaped plaything of breezy days in the park. These kites are the size of sails, C-shaped, with inflated baffles, trailing 20 to 30 meters (in kiteboarding, the metric system rules) of hollow-braided, 500-pound-test line; lying on the sand, they resemble enormous, brightly colored jellyfish.

Kiteboarding, as the name suggests, involves a board (it most closely resembles a snowboard) for the feet and one of those uber-kites for propulsion. Its appeal is immediately obvious -- you harness the wind to fly across the water at exhilarating speeds. (The world record is just shy of 50 mph, but the H2Air instructors say that even ordinary mortals might reasonably expect 20 to 30 mph on a fast run.)

Orthopedic surgeon Bob Huxster of Unionville, Pa., who is gearing up on the sand with a 20-meter kite, says he used to be a windsurfer, until one day a kiteboarder shot past him on the water and a new passion was born.

"This is more fun than windsurfing," he says. "It's teeth-in-the-wind, on the edge of control. You've never mastered it -- there's always another challenge."

For experienced kiteboarders, there's the thrill of the open ocean, catching the surf, riding the waves, launching off the top of a swell. "It's like a rolling skate park," Menk says. And, he says, "you can be playing in much lighter wind than windsurfing."

Today, on the bay side, students Hill and Cruise, having digested lessons in setup, safety and kite handling, are ready to get on the water. "Everybody wants to do the water lesson," Loop says. "They want to get on the board. But the reality is that you have to be able to control the kite first. Contrary to what you hear, kiteboarding doesn't take a lot of strength; it takes finesse."

Suiting up for kiteboarding means donning a body harness, which in turn is attached to a bar, which in turn is attached to the lines of the kite. You don't simply hang on and let the wind carry you away; rather, hands on the bar, kiteboarders rev up their rides by making the kites dive and swoop. "Diving the kite and bringing it back up develops power. You create apparent wind," Loop says. Or, as his wife, Paula (aka Spunky), explains it in highly technical terms, "It's sort of like when you stick your hand out the window in a moving car." Changing the angle of the kite to the wind increases your power and therefore your speed. Conversely, let go of the bar and the kite drops docilely into the water.

In the shallow waters 50 yards off the beach, a pair of deluxe, multi-seater Sea-Doos -- veritable SUVs of personal watercraft -- bob at anchor, the particularly mobile mobile training units for H2Air that allow the instructors to remain by students' sides for aid, assistance and instruction on the fly.

While Hill and Cruise head into the water to get the hang of getting on the board, Huxster launches with the help of the H2Air crew and skims rapidly across the bay, trailing a rooster tail of sea foam.

"Learning how to launch and land safely are key pieces to the water lesson," Loop says. Though some people take to the sport with natural ease, realistically, Loop says, most students should plan for about six hours of lesson time to become familiar with techniques, including proper rigging and safe landing. You'll still be a long way from pro, but, he says, "at the end of the lesson, I make sure someone can land and launch the kite with no problems. Then I feel like they'll be okay."

Despite the testosterone-reeking aura of most kiteboarding imagery -- the video clips with the driving guitar tracks and high-flying glory shots, the "extreme" tag invariably attached to the sport in every news and magazine story -- you get the impression that though the H2Air instructors are all in favor of enjoying kiteboarding's speed and airborne excitements, they don't have much patience with hot-dogging. They stress safety first.