Welcome to the Rok

"The Rock" is hardly my favorite movie, but that one line is pretty useful at times. In this instance I'm referring to a new kite a friend is making for me, a 6' rokkaku. She's following plans from Gary Engvalls's site with a lot of additional photographic material from various kite makers and fliers around the world. (Thanks, Google Images!)

I bought all the bits and pieces from Kitebuilder.com, including the fabric, the bridle line, grommets, webbing, spars, basically everything. I got to see the sail for the first time today, and it's beautiful! Even having looked at pictures and diagrams online, I wasn't prepared for the size of the thing. It's 72" tall, 60" wide, and a total of 23.5 sq ft of area. Considering my largest kite at the moment is a Flowform 16, this is a big step up for me!

But it's a step in the right direction. Flowforms typically have line angles on the order of 40-50 degrees, give or take. The bridle can't be adjusted to give different angles of attack, so this is a feature of the kite that's fixed. I adjust the line angle on my Flowforms by adding or removing tails. More tail produces a lower line angle. Less tail produces a higher one. No tail makes for a line angle in the 50 degree region, but it's typically not stable enough that I'd trust a camera to it.

This limits what subjects I can photograph, though. Waipi`o valley on the Hamakua Coast is a gorgeous place, with lush taro farms and huge ironwood trees lining the black sand beach. It's also a great place to get a steady onshore breeze, and should be the perfect spot for KAP. But the trees are close enough to the water that a Flowform can't fly there without risking a tangle in one of the tree tops. I've flown there only one time, and vowed not to risk my kites again.

A rokkaku, on the other hand, has a much higher line angle and allows for bridle adjustments. It's a sparred kite where the Flowform is not, and also allows for adjustments to lines that put an induced bow into the spars. The combination of adjustments let it fly in a wide range of winds at a fairly wide range of line angles. Perfect for flying in Waipi`o and Pololu, two beaches with ironwood trees. And the larger sail area makes it perfect for flying in Kona where wind tends to be a little light.

There's one other benefit to a higher line angle: If a kite's line is horizontal to the ground, you essentially need infinite tension on the line in order to lift a one pound camera rig. If a kite's line is completely vertical, you need only one pound of tension on the line in order to lift a one pound camera rig. The higher your line angle, the less pull you need to lift the same rig. So with the larger sail area (23 sq ft as opposed to 16) and with the higher line angle, I can basically lift my rig in almost any flyable wind now.

I'm stoked!

My friend says she can likely finish the sail tonight. That means I need to cut, square, and finish the spars, make end caps, make the kite's bridle, make bow tension lines, put grommets where the bridle will poke through, etc. I may be able to fly it tomorrow afternoon, good wind willing!

Can't beat it...

Tom