Giant Kites. Sewing and Home made flight.

These have nothing whatsoever to do with boats. But I think they’re quite fascinating. They are also really quite large, the blue one pictured is six metres across, and its green partner nearly five. I started making them as a memorial to my late father soon after he died but things quickly got ambitious. The brief I set myself was that they had to be entirely handmade using materials one could easily obtain ‘on the high street’. This involved teaching myself how to use a sewing machine and learning about structures based on tensegrity. To be fair the scale of the latest two, and now the one under construction does mean that I’m exploring the limits of what’s possible. They are potentially unruly to the point of dangerous on the ground, often have to be heftily staked down during assembly and prior to launch and are hence ludicrously finicky about windspeeds. A heavy landing can mean snapped spars. Even the little one (number 3, white, pictured above) is a bit of a monster and on one notable occasion got away from me, leading to considerable damage repair back at the workshop. There are eight kites so far, each requiring something like 50 hours of sewing.

But they fly absolutely fantastic, like airborne tanks. and I really enjoy seeing them in the air. After all the work of making and lengthy organising of getting ready to go it’s lovely to stand there with a cup of tea and enjoy the spectacle of flight.

I have flown the biggies in tandem (on the same line one behind the other) several times which is quite an undertaking, and requires a system of ground anchors and accompanying bridle. It’s enormous fun on the rare occasion that it happens.