Kites The World on a String

 

American kiters David and Susan Gomberg, patrons of the Cape Town International Kite Festival, are extremely well-travelled kite fliers. They have participated in more than 100 kite festivals in 35 countries, including Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, the South Pacific, and across North and South America. But it’s the Cape Town International Kite Festival that has earned a special place in their hearts. “We love Cape Town and the people we have met through Cape Mental Health. We will definitely be back,” said Susan Gomberg, despite having dislocated her shoulder anchoring a big kite in gale force winds at the 2011 event.

 

Local kiters Keith Mould, from Knysna, and Greg Mountjoy of Windsong Kites, in KwaZulu-Natal, are part of the international kite circuit and travel every year to different festivals in places as diverse as India, Bali, Indonesia and Germany. “Kiting is a wonderful way to connect with people from all over the world,” says Mould, who has an impressive collection of over 300 kites.

 

Every kite festival has its own flavour. The Cape Town International Kite Festival is organised by not-for-profit Cape Mental Health and raises funds to help provide free mental health services in the Western Cape. It is very much a family-focused event that brings together people of different ages, abilities and cultures, who enjoy watching and flying kites. Giant inflatable ‘show’ kites are the main attraction, with stunt kiting displays and Rokkaku kite battles also on the programme.

 

History

Although power kiting has only been popular for a couple of decades, kites have been flown for millennia. It is not known exactly when and where the first kites were flown, but cave paintings in Indonesia suggest that thousands of years ago local people were using leaf kites, possibly for fishing.

 

One of the first times kites were written about is 2,200 years ago when a Chinese general used a kite to measure how long a tunnel his army needed to dig, to secretly reach inside a walled city. The earliest Chinese kites were usually rectangular and flat. From China kite-flying eventually spread along trade routes across Asia to India. Kite fighting became popular in many countries, and although the rules and kites differed, the idea was usually to cut your opponent’s line.

 

Explorer and adventurer Marco Polo carried stories of kites to Europe more than 700 years ago, but it took several hundred years before kites really took off in Europe.

 

Although some people think Africa is the only continent without a kiting tradition, South African kite-making dates back to the days of slavery. The Swaeltjie kite (swallow or bat kite) is believed to have originated in South East Asia and travelled to Africa more than 350 years ago via Indonesian and Malay slaves. Today these kites are still being made by descendants of slaves, particularly in Cape Town. Goosain Davids and his grandson Mujaid make particularly fine Swaeltjie kites and have won the Heritage Kite Award for the past two years running. Goosain says that they make their kites using bamboo sticks, fishing line and a special kite paper. “Other people use tissue paper, but we use the original kite paper. Where we get it from is our secret. It is a shop in Cape Town, but I’m not saying where.”

 

Kites for science and war

There are many records of kites being used for scientific research, including Benjamin Franklin’s experiment in 1752 to test if lightening was electricity, which he was lucky to survive. Alexander Graham Bell (inventor of the telephone) built gigantic man-carrying kites in the nineteenth century. One was made of 3,393 tetrahedron shaped cells locked together. The Wright Brothers also experimented with kites in their quest to invent the aeroplane, and their first plane in 1903 was modelled on a Hargrave box kite. In 1901 Guglielmo Marconi used a kite to lift an antenna for the first transatlantic radio transmission in history.

 

The British, French, Italian and Russian armies all used kites for enemy observation and signalling. During World War II the American army used a specially designed kite – the Garber Target Kite - for target practise.

 

Power kiting

Since the 1980s there has been a renewed interest in kiting for sport. New materials like ripstop, nylon, fibreglass and carbon graphite have made kites stronger, lighter, more colourful, and durable.

 

Kite traction

Using kites to pull people or objects is at the heart of today’s power kiting and was pioneered by George Pocock. This English school teacher patented a carriage drawn by kites in 1826. The Charvolant was able to reach speeds of up to 32 km/h hour; quite a speed considering this was long before the first car hit the road. New Zealander Peter Lynn, proud Guinness World Records holder for the world’s biggest kite, is credited with popularising modern day kite buggying with the development of lightweight, affordable kite buggies in the 1990s. Today a skilled kiter can reach speeds of over 110 km/h, and some enthusiasts do extreme buggy jumping where the kite literally lifts buggy and rider into the air.

 

The 1980s and 1990s also saw the development of water relaunchable kites, which can fly even when wet. This helped to make kitesurfing a reality and today there are an estimated 250,000 participants around the world, including many in coastal parts of South Africa, where there is an abundance of the two main ingredients: wind and sea.