FOUR FOREIGN KITE FESTIVALS 2014

The first of my foreign festivals was at Notre Dame de Monts on the Atlantic coast of France and was the first I’ve been invited to as a guest. It was 500 miles from the Zeebrugge where the ferry from Hull goes to. I took three days to travel there and arrived on the Thursday. Flyers had been invited from the 1st to the 11th July with the festival proper being over the weekend. To my delight I found a number of friends there. Derek Kuhn was there so I had an English friend who I got to know a lot better over the week and at the next festival too. Other friends were KAPers. Jean-Daniel I have known for a long time, Patrick and Giselle Bonneaux whose photos I had seen on the Internet. Then there were kite fliers Patrick and Michelle who are on the CVCF committee and who have become friends over the years.
We had sunshine and wind all the time but the wind was cold, coming off the sea. All the big demonstration inflatables were on the South end of the beach (where the Motorcaravan parking was). The arena for small kites such as mine was up the North end with a ten minute walk between the two! Of course I wandered around, kite and camera in the air, ignoring the areas.
One day after launching past the ‘biggies’ on the South side, I went along the beach but, as the tide was coming in, I had to paddle to get past the moorings of a big turtle. I realized that my trouser bottoms were getting wet so I Zipped them off to shorts height and went in. A small wave or two saw to it that I had to change. What we KAPers do for our art. Eh!
Along the promenade Ettienne had a lot of interactive creations made of all sorts of recycled things and the children had a great time running through or making things turn, ring or rattle.
The highlight of the week and was the fire show with fires all along the North Promenade and gardens. Fiery words were spelt out on the beach and Patrick B took kite aerial photos, weaving his way through the crowds followed closely by Giselle with a Go Pro camera on a pole. They have put a film of the festival on the internet. There were fires in great globes in the gardens and fires in buckets along the prom. Fiery furnaces were along the prom and there were no ‘elf and safety’ rules and you HAD to walk quite close to some fires. This was part of the night flight so as well as the fires there was a good floodlit display and a few, including me, not involved in that, flew kites on the beach. I eventually took mine onto the prom to savour the exiting atmosphere. I ended up sitting next to another flier in the gardens and having a chat, both kites flying merrily in the smoky air.

PENVINS, BRITTANY, FRANCE
I left on the Thursday to go to the next kite festival which was at Penvins in Brittany, taking a break on the Ile de Noirmoutier on the way. I had been offered a place on the campsite 300m away at a ‘Bon Price’ as I wasn’t allowed on the site with my big van. This festival was, I think, the most pleasant and friendliest I’ve been to over the years. It helped of course that there were 5 active KAPers there. The three from N D de Monts and Mickael, one of the organisers, and Laurence Ott, the second female KAPer I have met and according to Jean-Daniel, we two were about half of the female KAPers in the world, that is solo ones, not part of a couple – correct me if I'm wrong. There was a good wind and a nice big hedge along the windy side so it got to be very pleasant flying there. The large site was on a ‘Presque Isle’ and part of it was a nature reserve. There was a little island you could walk over to except at the very top of the tide and I took my kite and camera for a walk there one day, coming back via Derek’s 50m ‘Vlags’ and carrying on right round the coastal footpath till there were too many kite lines across my route to continue. I needed a trip to the bar and a rest after that. The food provided for fliers was very good and plentiful and you realized how many fliers there were when the queue formed at mealtimes.
There were night flights on both Saturday and Sunday and the orange and grey spikey ball looked good lit up from the inside. Its owners and makers, Letitia and Christophe haven’t been into kiting long but have made a lot of their ‘signature’ orange and grey kites including an octopus. Their enthusiasm was great to see.
There was an offer for the public to try two line kites and Patrick and Giselle were well occupied teaching anyone – even little ones of 5 or 6 years.
The Saturday evening entertainment was a folk rock band playing traditional Breton music and the locals, and a few fliers, danced their traditional dances in a lines which move slowly left and consist of a few short steps forward and back which were sometimes quite complex. I joined in one but they go on for ages and my legs ached by the end of it. The locals kept on for hours.
Mick asked the fliers and their kites to go onto the arena and supervised the making of a kite shape on the ground for him to take a KAP photo. I took myself with my kite and rig flying above the ‘kite’ and this is the result. There was a black and while collie dog which its owner got to lie down as part of the cross spar.
There was a constant change of events in the arena near the food and bar marquees and there were crowds of people sitting on the grass watching all weekend. The sweetie drop was very popular and also strictly controlled with the announcer telling then to take only one sweet and leave the rest for their companions. Laurence took good KAP photos of it.
We KAPers formed a little clique and socialized a lot. (On the last day, Mick brought a bottle of Champagne and Giselle produced some biscuits for a farewell aperitif) On Sunday, Mickael suggested a trip to the Chateau Suscinio a 10 minute drive away. We set off about 6pm and launched from near the ‘doves’ or moat at the bottom of the photo and went our separate ways taking photos of the back of the chateau which was the sunny side. On the way back Mick suggested going back in the morning to take the front which would catch the morning sun. Unfortunately, the wind was so light that my 3m delta wouldn’t take off and neither would Laurence’s. I could see Jean-Daniel’s Fled high up and Mick’s pale blue, very light delta as well. They were floating on thermals rather than flying and were really high. I gave up and went round to them. Mick asked if I would put my rig on his line as his was too heavy. It went up and we got some good pics of the chateau and the sea not too far away. On one you can just see the Penvins presque isle in the distance along the coast.

After the festival I spent a few days in the area and KAPed the 5000 year old Petit Mont Cairn, the Pierres Plates burial chamber, the Table de Marchands (another grave) and the Pierre Brise (broken monolith) but failed in my attempt at the Carnac alignments which are rows of standing stones which fill a field width and go on for many kilometers inland. There just wasn’t enough wind.

I was home for only 3 weeks when I set off for the Rijsbergen Vleigerfeest. There was too much wind for KAPing but the grey sky was still filled with kites from a number of different countries including a good contingent from the NEKF. Josh Micheson and his Dad Peter did a great stunt. Josh flew a Rev blindfolded, guided by Gerry Swift. Peter held a balloon above his head and eventually Josh managed to burst the balloon which released cloud of white powder.
I hoped to KAP the British fliers’ show in the main arena but the bad wind conditions made it impossible. The only decent photo was of Dick Toonen and a group of his ‘Drumbox’ kites on the ground. They later had a record breaking flight of 50 Drumboxes which looked great.
On each day there was a full program in the main arena and the NEKF put on a great show and were awarded a cup at the end of the festival. They in turn awarded their prize to the whole team of organisers and helpers instead of a single kite or flier. The Friendship kite made its appearance and soared into the sky with its long, long tail behind it, but the Air Gallery stayed displayed in the marquee.
There were a number of two, and four line displays including some from Graham Lockwood and Josh Micheson. The wind in the arena was not good, being strong high up and practically none low down behind the nearby trees. This made flying very difficult for them.
On Sunday, a great whale appeared for a while. It must be the biggest around dwarfing anything else on the field.
I was pleased to meet KAP friends from previous visits, Theo (who was at KAPiNED, the KAP conference in Nederland in 2010) and Lina his wife were there all the weekend. Both he and Cees Kuppen had displays of their photos and rigs. Bert Maetens came on Sunday and spent the afternoon catching up with people. He had met me in Antwerp and taken Frank Dehu and me on a KAP trip. He was keen to try out his new KAP Foil kites. He started with the large green one and, declaring it too big for the wind, flew his small orange one when we were at Paal. Some of you may have come across him on his first visit to Portsmouth festival this year.
Dieppe International Kite Festival
It was good to be at Dieppe International Kite Festival again and I arrived on Friday after travelling for three weeks since Rijsbergen. I had planned to tour Holland but as the forecast was bad, I kept going South till I found warm sun and pleasant camp sites in Burgundy and then later, at Gien on the Loire. I drove up from there to a lovely quiet campsite by a stream and two lakes near Dieppe to recover before the festival.
I was "bien placé" on the fliers' motorcaravan parking near to the English crowd, the water and electricity as well as being nearer to the main flying arenas. The Germans around me were very friendly too - even when I drove off still attached to the shared electric wire. He had mended it by the time I returned 10 minutes later. The arena next to the m/van parking was our 'playground' with more space to fly in and we were able to keep an eye on the kites while socialising near the vans.
Saturday and Sunday mornings were misty days just right for the "no wind" kites. I'm glad I brought my Zero 1.1 and I flew in company with Jim and his tiny vented iFlite - both of us standing on the promenade wall. A little wind came up in the afternoons and the sky was filled with kites on Sunday with the promenade and viewing areas filled with sightseers. The pebble beach had an interesting combination of enthusiastic first time fliers running around, worried KAPers and owners of the big lifters carrying all sorts of line laundry.
Sunday morning sees the Grande Parade d'ouverture with fliers carrying their banners round Dieppe. As usual I just missed the 10am start and watched them disappearing down the rue. I was hoping to KAP them, so after breakfast I went to the other end of the arenas but the wind was too light and I was back at the van long before they trudged back at 11-30. I did however meet Peter Bults of www.kapshop.nl and Peter Van Eykel both KAPer friends from KAPiNED and KAPiFRANCE125. They managed to take a KAP photo of the parade outside their hotel.
José Wallois did stirling work explaining KAP in the Photo Aerienne tent where KAP photos, including some of mine, and a number of rigs and cameras were on display. I did KAP a little during the week but had problems with either the wrong choice of kite or forgetting to press 'all the right buttons not necessarily in the right order' on the camera, because I was using various SDM scripts on the Canon camera instead of my usual Pentax fired by a GentLED.
On Wednesday I met NKG members Carol, Len and Gwen, there for the first time and loving it. Gwen was flying two of Karl Longbottom's jellyfish which looked great but were pulling really hard in the breeze. The NKG banner and kite showed me where they were and we had a good chat, which is part of the fun of festivals. I also came across the Kent Kite Fliers who had a great display of flame f-tail deltas.
It was sunny and warm enough for shorts all week with a 'good flying breeze' after the weekend crowds went home! The wind was mainly along the flying field but very blustery keeping everyone on their toes. The demonstration of kites with hummers on got a bit out of hand as the blustery wind made them fly where THEY wanted too, taking out anything left in the demo arena. You couldn't hear the hummers as the commentator was so loud in his descriptive exclamations "aaauw" "aauw" as they zoomed around, landed and were sent up again
As well the displays in the main arena and the general arena (over) full of kites, a roc fight took place every evening, continuous two and four line demonstrations every day in another arena and French junior fighter kite championships on Wednesday. One of the motorcaravan couples were a team and flew their aerial ballet using blue two line kites with a long tail between them, like Graham Lockwood does. The tents near those arenas were predominantly different countries specialising in fighter kites with a good variety of designs to choose from.
A number of displays with information of 100 years of kite flying were on show and quite a few replica historical kites were in the air too, some of which went to Amiens on Dieppe's second weekend for a 'festival of the air' commemorating the 100 years since the start of WW1. There was a huge display of Steiff Roloplan yellow and red kites and one newer huge Roloplan style kite took to the air on the beach with a large bell on the end of the long tail!
As well as their splendid kites, the Indian "special invitees" have had a marionette show for the kids, complete with a little portable stage. The Indonesians were the other "special Invitees" and shared the big marquee with India making a trip there quite an exotic experience.
The teams from the Far East have some beautiful kites. Some are very elegant while the Taiwanese kites are like animals and birds especially 'la chouette' – owls - which bring good luck. There were spectacular and 'new to me' kites this year which is good because the same kites seem to appear at all the festivals. I was quite taken with a set of wriggly kites. Three ‘Transformers’ men and two motorbikes were on one lifter on the beach and a row of multi-coloured raccoons (or lemurs) with stripy tails were next to them. It was near there that I crossed lines with a green delta (don't know what happened to it though I searched the sky and the beach later) and my Dopero Drone came down heavily between people on the promenade and the rig and camera on the stony beach. The camera was OK - partly because it wasn't on (user error) and the rig's legs took the shock. I thought the kite was OK but when I next flew it, it kept pulling strongly to the right. On a closer look, one spar was an inch or so shorter than the other and was cracked too. Another trip to the Bilboquet's and Roland's stalls was called for. I then spent my last euros on some orange ripstop and had to go to the ATM for more money.
Thursday was my last day and it turned out to be the best for my KAPing. Around lunchtime I saw two three masted sailing ships which looked like they were heading for Dieppe. I collected my trusty Power Sled 24, the rig and two cameras and headed for the pier. Corantan and Fabian had the same idea. I KAPtured the front half of the first ship but was slightly better organised by the Stavros S. Niarchos British sail training ship arrived and KAPtured a few photos as it entered between the pier heads. Later I took the Power Sled and rig along the promenade, found an area free from lines to launch and spent a happy hour KAPing. Gwen found me there and I took a break and had a delicious caramel waffle with loads of whipped cream on. As I was shortly leaving, I worked my way back saying goodbye and left about 6pm, stayed at the m/van parking at St Valery sur Somme where I had a delicious meal at a restaurant on the outskirts of the village. Friday saw me doing a little shopping and a fill of diesel before catching the evening Zeebrugge to Hull ferry.

That's it for this year’s foreign festivals. À la prochain année.

Fly High

Sue Storey