On Saturday, September 11, you can take to the sky at the Sauble Beach Kite Jam.  This whole new event is a kiting festival that will showcase the amazing kitesurfing and kiting that Sauble Beach has to offer.  It will be a weekend filled with live music, kite and kitesurfing demonstrations along with a family flying area for these new to the sport.  Kite clubs are welcome to fly demonstrations at the festival.  

Kitesurfing or kiteboarding is a relatively new water sport that uses the wind to pull a rider through the water on a small surfboard or kiteboard.  There are a number of different styles of kiteboarding including freestyle or wake style while wave riding is focused on big waves using a board designed for wave riding.   If you would like to know more about Bruce County watersports, click here.

In the 1800s, George Pocock used kites of increased size to propel carts on land and ships on the water, using a four-line control system, the same one that is in common use today.  What George wanted to do was establish kitepower as an alternative to horsepower, partly to avoid the hated “horse tax” that was levied at the time.

Just after the turn of the 20th century, Samuel Cody developed man-lifting kites, succeeding in crossing the English Channel in a small collapsible canvas boat powered by a kite.

Today’s kiteboarding developed on the Atlantic coast of France, in New Zealand, and in the United States, particularly in Hawaii.  By 2000, kiteboarding had become a mainstream sport with competitions being held all over North America.

Both long distance and speed records have been set in recent years.  In 2006, Kristy Jones set a distance record for a kiteboard when she traveled 225 kilometres from the Canary Islands to Morocco in nine hours.  

Find a place on the Beach at Sauble on Saturday, September 11th and let your eyes follow the kiteboarders into the sky.  We’ll see you at Kite Jam!

Subscribe via E-mail:

Enter your e-mail address

Posted on: 01/09/10