Seattle's Mr. Kiteboard: He's seen sport's evolution

A child of our fast-forward world, kiteboarding has essentially evolved in less than 10 years from a few inventive (and crazy) guys with hang-gliding apparatus on water skis to an entire industry of well-designed, easy-to-use kiting systems. With their feet strapped to boards shaped like short, wide snowboards, kiteboarders harness themselves to inflatable kites and use the wind to power themselves across the water — sometimes lifting into the air for short flying jumps.

"It's a combination of windsurfing, surfing and skateboarding — there's a unique feeling of freedom as you're skipping across the water," said Robin Ogaard, owner of Urban Surf, a Seattle store serving kiteboarders, surfers and windsurfers, who says the sport's pioneers were mainly windsurfers hankering for a new rush.

In the late 1970s, Ogaard was a teenager living in Minnesota when he fell for windsurfing and became a "back-seat meteorologist" who arranged his schedule around the wind. He and his brother Ryan made use of the state's reputed 10,000 lakes ("there are more like 15,000," Ogaard quipped) to hone their windsurfing skills in the early days of the sport.

Solely because of its proximity to Hood River, Ore. (windsurfing capital of the world), Ogaard moved to Seattle in 1985 and opened his first store on Westlake Avenue. After years of commuting to the Columbia Gorge for wind, he tried kiteboarding and happily discovered he could exploit his love of wind and water minus the long drive.

"Areas that were never popular windsurfing spots are super for kiting because of the sport's lower wind threshold — and you get the same adrenaline rush with kiting," Ogaard said.

Not just for the extreme

Now considered more a sport of technique rather than strength, this was not always the case. When he first started kiting in the late 1990s, Ogaard says it was a sport of "trial and error, heavy on the error."

The first kites were hard to control, slow to respond, cumbersome in the air and lacked modern safety mechanisms. Ogaard and some pals (including Adam Koch, who went on to take third in the kiteboarding world championships) dragged their primitive gear to Seattle's Golden Gardens beach park on blustery winter days where they practiced getting upwind, one of the sport's keys to success. "Oh yeah, I've climbed up over that jetty more than once," Ogaard said, shaking his head, remembering — not fondly — being swept into the rocks at Shilshole Bay Marina.

"One of the draws of kiteboarding for me was the fun of being on the learning curve, having the excitement and passion you get when you're learning a new sport," he said.

To people shy of learning curves (perhaps those with families and full schedules), Ogaard emphasizes that with the improved equipment, kiteboarding is easier and safer to learn than before. Others see experts doing tricks and taking aerial leaps and think it's only for the extreme among us, which Ogaard says just isn't so.

"If you don't want to jump, you don't have to. It takes from one to three years to become an average windsurfer," he said. "With kiteboarding, you're comfortable and having fun in one to three months."

This, combined with less-finicky wind parameters and vast advances in both equipment and safety, has won over many a windsurfer. Other early adopters included wakeboarders, snowboarders and traction-kite fliers, though the sport now attracts a wide range of people, many of them trying out a wind/water sport for the first time.

Better equipment

That increase in participation is possible because of advances in gear, such as having one central control bar to power the kite — "like having an accelerator pedal rather than a fixed gas input," explained Ogaard. To brake suddenly, with one move kiters can quickly release from the bar.

"The big changes are the shapes and styles of the kites," Ogaard said. "Now with two kites and one board I can go out in winds ranging from 10 to 30 knots plus. When I started kiting, I needed five kites to do that."

New design software steers kiteboarding improvements on a fast track, with adjustments moving from the computer screen to the water for testing in under a week's time.

The past two years have seen major kite-design enhancements, which Ogaard compares to the revolution of shaped snow skis. "In talking to designers, there's not anything that big on the horizon just yet; they're in a refinement stage," he said.

Ogaard isn't sitting around waiting. Ever itching for that learning curve, he's recently started stand-up paddle surfing (standing on a surfboard to paddle about) for fun and conditioning. But he's still a devoted kiter. One of the things he enjoys most about the sport is that instead of eyeing the Weather Channel for high-wind storms, he can have nearly as much fun on a nice, warm, sunny, north-wind summer day.

Kathryn True, a freelance writer who lives on Vashon Island, is a frequent contributor to NW Weekend.