Cleethorpes Kite Festival 2004

Cleethorpes Beach - 15th & 16th May 2004

I and my family arrived at Cleethorpes late at around 12:00 (partly due to a short, but pointless, diversion up to the M62 as I missed the M180 junction from the M18. DOH!!!) just in time to get lunch at McDonalds. Once we had arrived at found somewhere to park and done the registration bit and found somewhere to install ourselves it was getting on for 1:00.

Whilst the children got on with sandcastles and things, I got the Revolution 1.5 out and got busy flying. The wind was actually rather good - more or less onshore and pretty constant (a real treat for me, given the usual Sheffield gusty wind). So after a good session with the Revolution I noticed a chap flying near me with a nice light blue Synergy Deca with two tails on the wingtips - "What a good idea" I thought - and promptly got my own Custom Deca out. However due to the lack of space (I had a couple of posts near me, as well as the other flyers/kites of course!) I was very concerned about losing control of the kite whilst trying the flip tricks, so stuck with simple flying. I decided this after getting the flying lines stuck over one of the posts when trying one of those flip trips, of course!

After a while I swapped back to the Revolution - and managed to get it's bridle stuck on a different post, then got the Kwat out (which flew nicely, if somewhat twitchy). During this time I got talking to some other fliers who had been flying some Vented Revolution in pairs, swapping Revolution (and other Quad kites) tips and thoughts. After that the Papillon got a brief outing, but the wind speed had started dropping so it didn't fly to well. I even plucked up courage to fly the Air Bra - its first real 'public' outing! Towards the end of the day the wind shifted to offshore and became very variable - so much so I didn't have much success with even the Rev SUL.

So what else was there? Well the Sunderland Air Gallery were there again - large painted 'art' kites I'm rather taken with, the usual big inflatable kites, a very beautiful small white single line kite, lots of mylar fighter kites fluttering around (I must get round to having a go with one). Rok fights, altitude sprints, teddy bear drops, a beautiful long train of kites - and lots of people watching from the sea front having (I hope) a good time.

A good, if tiring, day. I think we all wished we could have stayed longer and watched the fireworks and night flying. And the only thing I bought was a 4mm nock for my HQ Obsession I had somehow broken for the massive sum of 20p and I somehow resisted buying that Airbow......

And on the journey home I didn't miss any motorway junctions. Which was good.