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Kiting with Kristin Boese
Kiting with Kristin By Anna Curnow A select group of Auckland kite boarding enthusiasts were in luck on the 23rd October when 2006 PKRA World Champion Kite Boarder Kirsten Boese couldn’t get a direct flight to Perth and had to stop over in Auckland for a day. The word was put out through the NZkiteboarding.com website and a crowd of around 20 gathered at Pine Harbour to kite board with Kristin. While much of New Zealand was being ripped inside out by the ferocious winds, Pine Harbour settled into what was generally described as excellent conditions with the winds just under 30 knots. Kristin, originally from Germany, is on her way to Perth following a stop in Tonga for the girls-only kite boarding event, the Cindy Mosey Island Odyssey. 28 women kite boarders, both professional through to keen beginners gathered to learn from each other, compete and enjoy some camaraderie. Kristin has the kind of job most of us dream about. As a professional kite boarder she travels the world stopping off in fabulous locations to indulge in her most favourite activity, kite boarding. “Tonga was great. We were swimming with whales and kiting every day,” she says. At this point I make a gross error of judgement; I comment that it sounds like a fantastic sport for younger people, unlike me. Immediately, I discover that Kristin is not only a world champion kite boarder, but an expert marketer for the sport. “But we had women of all ages in our group. There was a 46 year old and a 48 year old. You don’t have to be strong. It’s all about having feeling for the kite and women tend to have much better feeling than men.” Within two short minutes she has me placing a booking for lessons with Orewa shop Anabatic Kite Boarding. “You only need a 2 or 3 day course. I was jumping in a week. The results are really fast and because of the speed you don’t need very much balance. It’s way easier to learn than wind-surfing,” she says. She claims she’ll even look me up next time she’s in New Zealand to check how I’m going. The problem is I’m worried what will happen if I don’t have ‘feeling for the kite’. What if the kite gets a feeling for me? But even there, Kristin overcomes my objections claiming that in all her years of kite boarding the worst damage she’s done to herself is a sprained ankle, a few stretched ligaments and one case of bruised ribs. I bow to her expertise and make my booking. Kristin says she was positively surprised by the conditions in New Zealand. “You have so many different spots with everything from flat water to waves. You can choose any conditions you like,” she says, then adds, “it is a little colder though”. As much as she likes New Zealand, it’s impossible not to like her. Lacking the characteristic dourness of some Germans, Kristin comes across with a winning combination of frankness, enthusiasm and intelligence. As a result, she claims to have met only friendly and helpful New Zealanders, even amongst airport officials. Anabatic Kite Boarding’s Lee McClelland backs up my impression of her. “She’s really friendly and down to earth. Like other overseas sports people she’s much more willing to share her stories and help others to grow their skills, than some New Zealand sports stars.” Kristin’s plans for the next three weeks are to relax in Western Australia before the last competition of the season in December. Here I stumble into my second mistake, suggesting that she might be chilling on the beach for that time. But no, it seems for Kristin, relaxing means more training, just not too hard. Western Australia is one of her two favourite places in the world, along with Hawaii. She laughs that she might even end up living in WA one day once she’s done a few more years of the professional kite boarding circuit. For a moment I struggle to imagine her settled and doing something less interesting. But then I realise such an energetic and focussed person will certainly change tack one day and when she does, she’ll make a roaring success of that too. I have to say I’m looking forward to showing off my kite boarding skills when Kristin returns to New Zealand. Maybe I do have that ‘feel for the kite’ after all…. Kite boarding is a relatively new sport but is already available pretty much everywhere in New Zealand. Check out www.nzkiteboarding.com for more details of what’s on and where to go to try out kite boarding for yourself. 
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