When we’re kiting, we can’t always travel in a straight line. Similar to most sailing vessels, we can’t head straight into the wind as there is no pressure in the kite. We cannot travel directly downwind for exactly the same reason. Therefore the “Distance Kited” is almost always longer than the “Distance Travelled”, which is measured by a straight line along the coast.
A good example of this was on May 6th:
The blue line is Mentor, the white Islay and the red Stew. The wind was coming from the East. Stew and Islay on their kites had to “beat” upwind, ie tack back and forth in order to get upwind (the zig-zags you see). Where as Mentor could head in a straight line. On May 6th we kited 52 nautical miles, but only travelled across the ground 22 nautical miles.
