Do you ever Kiteboard while it's raining? Any personal expriences?
...
You have bin , (Kiting since: 2021) ; so you don't have proper
reference from past experience.
So --- I would recommend, you follow the Good advise below ; if you choose to
not follow that advise , then (your at way higher risk for injury) and it
would be silly to miss out on the Good kiting days, because your body
is broken.
I wouldn't go out as a beginner if it is raining. Drizzle with stable clouds is OK, but conditions in proper rain can be devious.
The craziest change in direction I have ever seen was in rain. Went from cross onshore to offshore in what felt like seconds. Thankfully only experienced riders were out on the water - if not that could have gotten ugly.
Another thing is that the air temperature will drop, sometimes significantly, like 20 F. If you do go, consider wearing a wetsuit. My last session was in the rain (on and off, with a 45 deg wind shift, and lulls). I did not have a wetsuit on and got a bit chilled. The water temp was higher than the air temp until the sun came back out and warmed everything up.
Also, have never flown my foil kites in any proper rain. Not sure how they would fly.
Here in Canada we kite in the rain all through fall-winter-spring, we even kite in the snow.
For sure you want to avoid squalls, but where I kite we don't really get squalls. Our rain comes from big Pacific Ocean frontal systems swirling past us.
My biggest issue with rain is that sometimes the heavy drops will hit you right in the ear (which is covered by a hood) and cause a very very loud noise which hurts your ears. The kite doesn't really care about the rain. Kiting in snow is much more serious and causes icing on the lines, icing on your face and icing on your QR.
My recent session was in the rain. More like, the sky was like a checker board, with patches of sun and clouds with squals and torrental rains, which changed each other every 30 minutes. It wasn't that bad, but it was intense and I had to show caution, especially if squalls became too strong. When wind picked up to 24-30 knots I prefered to get closer to the beach where I could stand waist deep in the water, keep the kite low above the water and be ready to QR and wait out if shit goes bonkers, which I had to do once that day. Wet kite on itself didn't affect much, but boy does the rain stings the face and drums on the neoprene helmet at the ears. Wind speed + your speed + rain drop falling speed. No bueno.
Once again, we have some advice here that will wind up getting kiters hurt.
Bottom line is that weather is location specific, season dependant, and even direction dependant.
In one location during a particular part of the season, on a specific wind direction, kiting in the rain may not pose a significantly increased risk.
In a different location, or even the same location just during a different part of the season or wind direction, the risk can increase significantly.
I travel and kite a few places where it is OK to kite in the rain. Other spots, it is gambling your life or gear and NOT worth it. If you don't know the local, seasonal, and directional conditions, don't kite in the rain.
Ram air kites are HOPELESS in rain. They quickly become waterlogged: heavy, slow, floppy, and dangerous. In really heavy rain, ram air canopies can completely collapse. Inflatables are vastly superior to ram airs - rain just bounces off.
Ignore the lies. Ignore the propaganda. Ram air kites are wet sleeping bags.
