Did You Ever Rip a Kite?

by Paul Beiderwell 1st Coast Kiting 02.20.07

I don't mean do you rip with a kite. I mean did you ever put a great big hole in your kite? Did you ever drop one right in front of a big wave only to have it munched? I guess this happens to all of us from time to time. If you kitesurf long enough sooner or later you will have to put the pieces back together. Often kite repairs take a while and often the quality of the job might be questionable. Who wants to miss two or three weeks of wind only to end up with a patchwork kite that pulls to the left?

Enter Don Smith, a.k.a. Grandpa Don.  Don started kiting back in 2000 and is now one of the best kiters in the area. He is known for his graceful laidback style and recently has become one of our best wave riders.  Most of the time he is the first one on the water and the last one to leave. I won't tell you his age but the moniker ‘"Grandpa" fits.

Somewhere in his past mixed up with horses, motocross racing, sailboat racing, windsurfing and various entrepreneurial endeavors he owned an upholstery business. It was there that he got his skill with a sewing machine.

Don is one of those guys that believes that if a thing is worth doing it is worth doing right. He applies great care and attention to detail in everything he does. Most of the time his repairs are almost impossible to find. (I speak from more personal experience with damaged kites than I care to remember.) Even his repairs on blown out leading edges are hard to find most of the time. Whenever possible he uses the exact same material for the repairs so even the colors are a near perfect match. When he can't find or get the right color he does his best to make the repair as invisible as possible. Of course he guaranties all of his work but every repair he has done for me has outlasted the kite.

To top it all off many of the repairs take less than two days so you don't have to wait weeks and weeks to get back on the water. All in all his professional style and skill are a hard combination to beat.