North Bay’s kiteboarding community may not be large, but its love of the sport certainly is.
“We have a small community here in North Bay. I would say right now there are about seven or eight of us. We’ll text each other and say it is windy, we’ve got to go,” said Greg Dancey who has been kiteboarding for 14 years.
“I got into it through wakeboarding. I saw it down in Wasaga Beach back when they were first starting out. But the sport actually started in Maui and it grew from there.”
Andrew Morrison credits Dancey for getting him into the sport.
“I’ve been kiteboarding for about nine years now. It feels like flying. With foilboarding you’re out of the water. You don’t feel any of the resistance in the water. It is kind of a cool feeling,” Morrison said.
“I was having fun right from the start, but when you’re learning how to do it, you’ve got to put your time in. It took about a year.”
Like many sports, kiteboarding requires sharp mental focus, strength, and endurance.
“When you’re stressed out, it takes the stress away. There is nothing else like it ” said Morrison.
The mental and physical benefits helped ease some of the pressures of living in the midst of a pandemic.
“We were really worried about it at the start because they were closing beaches. So, they weren’t allowing anybody to use beaches. I reached out and asked if it was possible, went through the right connections and they said it was fine as long as we were doing it at a safe distance,” said Dancey.
“It is a personal sport so you’re out on the water. It is something I enjoy doing. I didn’t really think about the pandemic all summer because I was still doing something I love.”
How often someone gets out on the water depends on how much free time they have and how cooperative the winds are.
“There could be 10 minutes of wind, there could be eight hours of wind. It can be once a month; it could be five days a week. It depends on the week. We’ll ride whatever the wind is giving us,” said Morrison.
“In North Carolina, we’ve done 50 kilometres from one point to another. Here on Lake Nipissing, I’ve kited from Sunset Point to the Chief Commanda and back.”
Dancey found the winds to be less than cooperative this season, meaning he did not get out as often as he would have liked.
“I find the winds have slowly been decreasing over the years. Some of my buddies have also been saying it hasn’t been as good as it used to be,” Dancey said.
“For North Bay what works best is anything out of the west. And when it's east we usually go out to Jocko Point. We’ll kite Jocko Point, but anything with a north wind we don’t kite. And wind speeds, the equipment they’re bringing out now, I can get out in five or six knots of wind. They cut through the water a lot better without a lot of resistance so there is no drag.”
Like most sports equipment you can invest as much or as little as you want.
“To get fully set it will cost about five or six grand,” Morrison said.
“For beginners, I always suggest getting just a kite and starting out with a twin tip. Hydrofoils are a little more advanced,” explained Dancey.
“Those are something you’ve really got to learn how to do with a kite before you get involved in that. That is years down the road.”
The best advice Dancey gives anyone wanting to give the sport a try is simple.
“Lessons. Really go for lessons, definitely. I know down in Toronto a few guys that have kite schools. North Bay is not really the best place to teach because we don’t get as many windy days as down south, but even North Carolina, there’s great schools down south.”
It is a competitive sport.
“It is very big around the world, especially in Europe. Quebec is very big for it. They also do snowkiting with snowboards and skis. So there are competitions for this type of sport,” Dancey explained.
When driving by Lake Nipissing take a quick look.
There is a chance you might still see kiteboarders zipping across the lake.
