Wave kitesurfing is a discipline on its own... it is like learning kitesurfing all over again: position, stance, technique. Ideal conditions are different. And even your gear is different.
Wave riding is best with side-on or side-off wind as it makes the waves clean and smooth to ride on. Waves are nice with offshore wind as well, but naturally you should go out only if experienced and have a rescue boat around.
Like surfers, for wave kitesurfing you'll want long, peeling wave that forms predictably with a well-defined peak, powerful lip, smooth barrel-like shape, and a long shoulder and wall you can do bottom turns and top snaps on at will.
1.5m to 2m high waves are great unless you are you really are comfortable, have all your safety reflexes dialled in and have the adequate equipment, else you should not go venture in bigger waves.
Beyond height, what makes a nice wave is also length, regularity, and power. Ideally periods of 15 and above are perfect.
For good wave surfing spots, see our page on wave spots.
You want a place that has constant wind and for wave riding, it needs to be strong enough to be riding on a kite no larger than 10m.
See our list of wave spots here for some ideas of destinations.
You will definitely have to go with a wave kite with a low aspect ratio because they are suited to drift.
Drift refers to your kite’s ability to fly with some slack in your lines and to stay ahead of you as you ride towards the kite (downwind). This occurs when you’re moving fast on your surfboard towards your kite, causing the lines to loose tension for a moment: that happens every time you are going down a wave.
With good drifting ability your kite will continue to fly and stay ahead of you whilst moving downwind. Else, if the kite does not drift and your speeds brings you closer and your lines slack, your kite will backstall, overfly or drop out of the sky. Often times that means lines get inverted or the kite gets inverted, and this is worse when it happens in waves where the risk of damaging the kite is high and relaunching is more difficult. More importantly, stalling kites can get you in difficult situations, see our recommendation for kite leashes.
Naturally to resist the potential crashes and beating in waves, a construction based on a strong fabric is desirable. And an easy relaunch ability is good in these situations.
As wave surfing involves using the power of waves, depowering (see wave surfing technique), you will need a kite with good depower range. And as wave surfing also involves kiteloops and downloops to adjust your position on a wave, usually small kites with a fast pivotal behaviour are preferred.
Some people prefer 5-7-9 quivers, others prefer 6-8-10 quivers. It is not uncommon to see the odd quivers used with twintips and even quivers used with surf boards but it really is a matter of preference.
Steering a wave kite is nice with a light bar pressure. Carving fast and tight turns on waves can quickly get exhausting with heavy pressure on the bar.
Light bar pressure is generally dependent on your kite shape and aspect but on some kites you can tune bar pressure with pigtail settings.
In freestyling, when unhooking and doing handle passes, it is common to use a long leash and attach it at the back of the harness. But that is probably the only situation where it makes sense.
In wave riding it is highly recommended to connect your kite leash in the front! Actually even if foiling or free riding, you will want do connect it in the front as well. By connecting your leash in the front, you benefit of a quick and easy access to your quick release, and so with both hands.
If you are riding in deep waters, or in waves you can find yourself pulled by your kite, for example when it falls down because of a bad manoeuvre, or because your kite stalled. What will happen is that your kite is pulled by waves or it may enter a death loop because the kite lines wrapped around the bar. Then you are generally submerged under water, pulled backwards, cannot breath and have to try and grab your quick release with one hand in the back: that is extremely difficult (or impossible) and probably the worst moment to do so.
If your leash is attached in front then you are facing the kite and can release or even try to recover your kite before releasing. But if attaching your leash in front, it will probably be more comfortable to use a short leash instead of a long leash... with less rope hanging around, the short leash will not bother you whilst riding.
Although there are wave specific harnesses with a sliding spreader bar in place of chicken loops, a normal harness with a fixed hook just works fine. The whole purpose of the sliding spreader bar is more comfort when riding toeside, which you can get used to without.
Do keep in mind that with a sliding spreader bar, if your quick release gets jammed, you're toast. And don't count on sharing a kite with someone or transferring it for any reason as you are forced to quick release to detach from the sliding spreader bar.
If you do plan to use a sliding spreader bar, do try to get those new chicken loops where you can just clip and unclip with one finger button press, that will make your life easier.
If you want to do jumps, keep a constant center of gravity and can deal with riding toeside with a fixed hook, then just use a fixed hook harness.
Kite surfboards are directional boards. There are two types of kite surfboards: wave kite surfboards and freestyle kite surfboards.
Wave kite surfboards are generally around 183 cm and will not be very wide to enable them to hold an edge better in the waves. Freestyle kite surfboards will be shorter, generally around 152 cm, which is easier to spin during tricks.
Wave kite surfboards need to have a strong deck because of the strain generated by having to stand on it all the time. But it should not be too strong or else the board will be stiff and a surfboard needs to remain flexible. Freestyle kite surfboards are also strong as they need to resist jumping and landing on the deck.
Modern surfboard designs prefer Epoxy to Polyurethane as it is much lighter, gives more buoyancy, and extra sensitivity. Which is great for progressive surfing on waves and to perform quick snappy manoeuvres. Some also use carbon fibre which is both light and strong.
Wave kite surfboards have rocker (bottom curve), whereas Freestyle kite surfboards have a flatter rocker.
Surfboards are ridden much flatter than twintips. Fins steer the board in a specific direction.
There are boards which can be equipped with 3 fins, and others with 5 fins.
There are two setups:
The thruster setup gives the "surf" feel which is nice when you turn on the wave.
The quads setup tracks much more and performs much better upwind and also in choppy conditions.
Some wave riders prefer to use straps on their wave kite surfboard. Generally straps are preferred only for control in very big waves and for not losing the board, and such boards can sometimes built heavier than normal.
Using a surfboard leash really depends on the conditions you will be riding in. In general, your decision flow should be something like this:
Hopefully this will clear out all doubts. And in case you had a doubt, whether your ride a twintip or a foil, don't use a leash...
It is important to be aware that using a Surf leash has a risk, especially in waves: if something goes wrong there are situations where the surfboard can go between the lines and that can create dramatic situations. You must be aware of this risk and ready to prevent this from happening, or to quickly react and if necessary to detach from the surfboard. It can also happen that if you detach from the surfboard the velcro will get stuck in the lines; then it is safer to release everything.
Wave riding requires to have safety skills dialled in. It cannot be stressed enough that safety skills must be practiced and dialled in before attempting to tackle big waves. Crashing in waves can quickly become a catastrophe. Risks are ripping a kite but worse, getting your kite and then yourself pulled by the waves or current (and drowning yourself), getting tangled into lines, getting a surfboard thrown at by a wave...
You must know and have practiced how to roll your lines properly in the water with your safety line wrapped first! You don't want to get back to the beach in shore break with dozens of meters of lines all over the place and the risk of getting tangled in them. You also must know and have practiced how to use your kite as a sail to get back to the shore in cases you would be far. You can also use your kite as a float to rest if needed.
To roll your lines properly in the water when you have a surfboard, it is important to learn how to do the operation whilst floating on the surfboard between the legs: balance can be difficult to find, but it really helps to be more comfortable during this moment.
A good best practice is to secure the one-pump locks on the struts before any session: that enables you to deflate your leading edge and use your kite as a float if needed.
Additionally, make sure you are familiar with your quick releases including the leash quick release. Also see our recommendation for leash when wave riding. What you need to be familiar with may also depend on the type of harness you are using.
It probably is not evident at first but relaunching a kite with a surfboard is different from relaunching a kite with a twintip, and can be significantly more difficult if not done with the correct technique.
When relaunching a kite with a twintip, we usually have the twintip in front of us and we are naturally applying some resistance to the pull of the kite, which creates tension in the lines and ultimately helps relaunching a kite.
When relaunching a kite with a surfboard, it is much more difficult to relaunch if the surfboard is floating around somewhere and trying to relaunch. Naturally without some form of resistance, the kite keeps pulling us and will not relaunch especially in low wind conditions. The best technique to relaunch the kite is to do it with the surfboard between the legs and slightly tilted to create some resistance. Basically that is the waiting position of surfers patiently waiting for their wave.
Going upwind on a surfboard is different compared to using a twintip: you need to keep the board flatter on the water and you need to place your rear foot closer to your front foot instead of above the fin box. Use both your feet to twist and steer the board upwind: remember that on a surfboard, the edge is round and cannot provide tracking, therefore the fins provide tracking.
The kite handling is similar but you will need to keep the kite lower if you are riding strapless so you can keep pressure down on the board with your feet. If your kite is to high you will be lifted off your board.
Stance on a surfboard is very important. For better balance and control, as well as to facilitate going up wind, you should use a wide stance. Your front foot really ensures you have your balance and control your board, but your back foot needs to be above your fins, especially if you want to go upwind.
The key to going upwind is to keep the board flat & use the fins to drive upwind. Most weight is on the front foot to keep balance and control, and drive with the fins by applying pressure on the back foot as if you push your fins downwind.
Again, most of your weight when riding surfboards is on your front foot, but you do want to apply more pressure on your back foot when carving a turn. You need to be conscious of adjusting your pressure and weight.
Surfing waves means you must master transitions, and doing so fast and consistently. Especially when you want to catch your wave with the good timing or if you are simply facing a wave too big for you and want to turn around quickly and not fall in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Transitions make wave surfing possible.
Remember to adjust the pressure you apply on the front and back foot during transitions. See our stance recommendations.
An important transition you must have is the chicken gybe, which is often used, especially when you realise you must turn around. It is not something you see much in all these nice kitesurfing movies as generally the chicken gybe is the "work you need to do" to get to the nice wave surfing shot or sequence...
The chicken gybe allows you to turn right on the same spot and not lose ground down wind.
You can learn the chicken gybe before you master tacks.
Duck tacks allow you to transition without losing any ground downwind. Very efficient trick to master.
Naturally you will want to learn gybes to transition at the bottom of the wave and at the top of the wave as well. But gybes make you lose ground downwind.
Wave surfing ultimately aims at using the power of the wave which helps to pick up speed: to focus on surfing the wave, it is therefore a valuable reflex to depower your kite and focus on surfing the wave. As wave kites have drift, they will move forward without creating slack in the lines when you move forward.
Kiteloops and downloops are very important in wave riding as usually you surf a wave and want to go downwind with the wave. Whilst you can go back and forth down and up the wave using gybes until the wave breaks, you then need to go further downwind, that is when loops are useful. So use kiteloops and downloops to pick up speed and go downwind.
Aerials are very advanced tricks which we won't go into. But there are some basics to aerials which are very useful, especially for going trough shore break.
You need to control your surfboard with your front foot as always. An aerial is initiated by an ollie, you then need to flex your front knee to let the surf nose go up. Whilst doing so you need to let use your toes to position the surfboard against the wind which will make it naturally stick to your feet. Then extend your legs again to land. If you have difficulty controlling your surfboard, try grabbing it.