Portsmouth Kite Festival

The forecast in the week leading up to Portsmouth Kite Festival was pretty poor (read: rain both days), but we were really lucky! It was grey and overcast on Saturday, but no rain (although all day it felt like it was going to rain within the next two minutes). On Sunday, we only had some early drizzle, and it brightened up as the day progressed. The wind was challenging at times, quite blustery on Saturday, and much lighter but turbulent (coming over the hotels) on Sunday.

As usual in my festival-related blog posts, I'll focus on team-flying; a link to general photos will appear at the end of this post.

OK, dual-liners first! Team Spectrum flew solid performances, as always, but did struggle with the wind at times.

I was very glad that the wind had dropped enough on Sunday for Carl to fly his 'Chi Mai' routine, which remains my firm favourite.

Josh Mitcheson flew his one man - three kites routine (as well as a Rev routine). At only fifteen, the next Chris Goff maybe?

Cerfs-Volants Folie gave a couple of dazzling 9-kite shows. Absolutely fantastic and mesmerising to watch; pure kite magic!

And then there was Flying Fish!! We were not officially on the programme, but TC managed to squeeze us in both Saturday and Sunday (thanks again, TC!). Flew our mega-vented Matrix kites on Saturday and our Cheetahs on Sunday. Routines were a bit ragged at times, and there were a few small mistakes (including Irma slipping), but we got out of it and I don't feel we made a fool of ourselves. Really good for our experience to fly at a festival as big as Portsmouth.







On to the quad-line teams present: Decorators, Fusion, The Flying Squad and Karasu

Without meaning any disrespect to the other three teams, I just want to single out Karasu. Why? Several reasons. First of all, I'd not seen them fly before. Second, they flew Revolution Blasts, which I'd not seen done before. And third, their three routines were a great combination of dance, humour, and skill (Blasts were not designed for precision, and it was amazing to see how Karasu controlled them). On top of all that, Toru and Sachie are really delightful people. So here they are once more:

Of course, all Rev-fliers present joined in a 24-Rev mega-fly. It wouldn't be Portsmouth without it!

Over a hundred photos of the festival weekend can be found here. But I do want to highlight one particular kite. Who can fail to be impressed by a Rolf Zimmermann Wyverex? His name is Smorg!

Picture credit of us flying: Roger Backhouse