Cool Felix&Hat strapless action

[Ivel]

thats a rad little jibe at 1:39 in the first movie
and they're riding twinfin now?
keep it coming

[jjjlaudenslager]

Pretty riding.

Notice, their rear/thruster fin boxes are empty!

[kayla]

This clip is a great inspiration.
My boyfriend is really into this strapless jumping now,when the waves are small he is still out there trying new things.
Its is also great to see the spills he has when things don't work out

[surfingwithkites]

Thanks for all the feedback and responses. I've been gone surfing for a bit so hadn't seen the forum in a while. There's a fair bit about the yellow pink board with no back fin in the upcoming KITEWORLD story so I won't get into it here at this time but it is a fun option and a new direction we are playing with. Some of the jokes in the video will be more understandable when you see the articles too.

Jim is trying to get a way to let you download the full high res version from the KITEWORLD site too. It really makes a difference when you see it big in HD. The whole idea with my style of filming is to get the viewer to feel right in the action and get sprayed.

We have a lot more creative new stuff on the burner with boards and filming ideas and a full movie in the works that should offer a different look and different point of view to the other kitevideos out there. Hint: it's not a remake of the "endless summer". Might take a little while to get done as there are some things I want to show that need to wait for travel and conditions (and I'm a lazy bastard who would rather ride than work)

To Ian and the GDC, thanks for the invite to NZ! I really hope we can take you up on that at some point soon since I would really like to feature that scene in the movie. Hard to bail here in the winter but might have to. I think the impact of NZ is going to be large in wave kiting and it's one of my favorite places to travel. But could you guys heat up the water for us? We would like Rags and Shippies to be bathtub warm for our arrival please. Lots of GDC stickers to distribute too.

Cheers, Jeff

[gkram]

The video is very cool Jeff, but I really like what they have done with your footage as far as the grade is concerned on the airush website. The color grade on the footage of Felix there certainly takes the dv edge off it - Looks a lot more like film. I like it

[surfingwithkites]

Gkram, thanks, yeah they did a good job with video color on the little clips over at Airush. I didn't know they had redone the website. Looks a lot better. As a bonus there is a funny shot of Felix on the backround of the Choptop page that is a good "what does this shot show" to test how well your friends can analyze a kite photo.

I should make up some story about wanting to run the Kiteworld video without color correction so that the stills stood out more but the truth is that we had to wait to edit the video until just before press time because we needed final photo selections and story and cover back from KiteWorld etc. So video ended up being edited in one afternoon rough to finish. The other reason is that we only had a week to learn to use final cut and have no idea how to use the color correction program yet. It's still in the box. Try to get to it for the next one. No promises. Surf season is starting. We're bleedin' amatuers at the edit end of this stuff but have good riding talent, decent experience at filming and some amusing concepts.

I hope it at least makes people want to get out and ride strapless and have fun with their friends. That's really all I hope to achieve with any of this shit.

[islandstylen]

cool stuff, spent the last week watching that vid whilewaiting for some wind down here. good inspiration for some light wind days with my surfboard. keep that shit coming

[Maradentro]

Brilliant clip, give us more!

Does anybody know the wind that was filmed in in and the average size of kite used, looking at the water it must have either between 10-12knots max or offshore(looks like it was surrounded by cliffs ), any ideas. If its 10-12knots how the hell do they get the performance out the kites like that?

Cheers
Rich

If you look closely at the end of the movie you see that TH is under a distinct EH ripper design, which is the same as a Unleashed Freak Dog, its hard to tell but it looks like an 8M. Never seen it used in this way, pulley bar, no de-power, one handed steering, no leash confidence.

Pretty impressive for a flat kite, looks like even the hard core are moving to the new wave of kite design.

[surfingwithkites]

Yeah, Hats been testing and working with freakdog a bit and flying it fixed on pulley bar to see what it can really do (and to speed it up). In my opinion the kite looks fine for strapless jumps but is way too slow for wave riding. Nothing wrong with the brand. Seems as good as any flat kite and well made. Just that simple fact that flat kites can't get from point A to point B in the window when they are ridden unhooked so they really limit your down the line options. I hope they continue to work with Hat and make a serious effort at a great unhooked wave kite. Hat is one of the best kite testers in the industry and it's hard to believe he is unsponsored since he rides circles around "pros" half his age. Just don't be deluded into thinking that flat kites on fixed bars are comparable to a good C by the freakish abilities of the man in the hat. After all this is the guy who used to regularly get spit out of giant outer reef pipeline barrels doing a headstand on a longboard.

[kiterMD]

does he do the headstands with the top hat on???