Shows promise for how awesome KiteFoil racing could be to watch with more big budget production value. More exciting than most Olympic programming.
Tangles and crashes yes, very spectacular, as on F-1. Especially cams on helmets.
Re: have you guys watched this, its sure to give you a heart attack
Posted: Fri May 22, 2020 4:38 pm
by davesails7
These videos are really great! For sure best I've seen yet.
These videos from hydrofoil pro tour a few years ago were also very good. They only had drone views, no headcam, but they did have some live narration:
The videos from the IKA events are horrendous. Usually they're about 3 minutes long, have 1 minute of people rigging their kites, 1 minute of people walking on the beach in slow motion, and 1 minute of random 3 second riding clips. Sometimes there's dancing at a bar after the races. The music is very intense though, I'll give them that.
Re: have you guys watched this, its sure to give you a heart attack
Posted: Fri May 22, 2020 7:29 pm
by Breze
The drone shots were really good. For my taste heli shots are a bit overkill in a green windpowered sport. I vote for high speed drone shots, multiple angles and distances possible, low Co2 footprint,lower costs and better vids
Re: have you guys watched this, its sure to give you a heart attack
Posted: Fri May 22, 2020 7:36 pm
by Toby
Drone way better, because safer.
If you had your kite pushed down because of a heli you will know why.
Re: have you guys watched this, its sure to give you a heart attack
Posted: Fri May 22, 2020 10:26 pm
by TomW
The last Americas cup in Bermuda used real time velocity, vmg, virtual moving finish lines, multiple one board cameras and course markers in live footage. It really made it exciting. It would be awesome to have these in kite racing.
I'd like to see better "on board" camera like both head mounted and line mounted. If every rider had one it would be fair.
Re: have you guys watched this, its sure to give you a heart attack
The last Americas cup in Bermuda used real time velocity, vmg, virtual moving finish lines, multiple one board cameras and course markers in live footage. It really made it exciting. It would be awesome to have these in kite racing.
I'd like to see better "on board" camera like both head mounted and line mounted. If every rider had one it would be fair.
A few years ago there were several races where all the top guys had GPS trackers on their boards, and there was a seperate app that showed all this information for each race. You could replay the race and see everyone's speeds and heading at any point. I can't seem to find it right now, but it's definitely doable.
I don't think anyone would go for the line mount camera, but cameras on the start boat and boats at the mark roundings would be great.
The real problem is getting people to race. Not sure what it's like in other areas, but on the East Coast US, there are very few people interested in racing. Last year I drove 11 hours to go to a race where 8 people showed up for the open kite hydrofoil class. I mean I probably drove past 100 milllion people's homes on my way to the race, but only 8 people thought it was worth it to show up to a kite hydrofoil race Maybe the olympic cycle will bring some new interest, but from what I've seen there is a very small group of people dedicated to racing, but the barrier to entry is very high (cost and time) so very few new people are starting to race.
Re: have you guys watched this, its sure to give you a heart attack
Posted: Sat May 23, 2020 2:50 pm
by Jyoder
Most racing involves maxing wind angles, speed on long reaches, and gear performance. What if you had some races that involved shorter reaches, more turns and obstacles like a slolam section, tight turns, some circles around a point. This would be more accessible for strapless surf foil riders on LEI kites. Think Motocross vs road cycle racing.
Re: have you guys watched this, its sure to give you a heart attack
Maybe the olympic cycle will bring some new interest, but from what I've seen there is a very small group of people dedicated to racing, but the barrier to entry is very high (cost and time) so very few new people are starting to race.