What a wonderful display, with such a lot of terrific "real" kites. They are so much more interesting than all the inflatable "line laundry", although I know that you (and I) have some of the latter, which has its place as a crowd-pleaser, but doesn't do so much for the true kite-lover. It's good to know that the currently volatile English weather allowed for some good flying, even if conditions were not perfect. Portsmouth is a great spot for the festival, and I hope it goes on for many more years. I wish that I had the chance to travel "home" to see it, but my travelling days are over. Thanks, Sarah, for uploading this video, which deserves to be widely seen.
Thank you Jim, I’m glad you enjoyed it and as you said Portsmouth is a great festival site and a showcase for all kites. The majority of festivals I go to in this country have a good mix of kites but they aren’t shown as much on RU-vid films filmed by the public.
Thank you Michael, she’s a new to us kite, we only picked her up the day before. She was Rolf Zimmermans first Seahorse kite that he made so a a special kite. She’s amazing for her age!
Thank you Sarah & Peter for sharing some highlights of this excellent festival. So many people enjoying the event. Such a mix of kites big and small. Sorry the weather didn't remain fine. Maybe we can get to see your new special kite in a future video?
Thank you Carl, it is such a lovely event with a fantastic mix of kites. Unfortunately we weren’t able to fly as many ‘art’ kites as usual there due to the weather this time. I’m sure you’ll see our new kite make an appearance soon.
A great video, Sarah, of what looked like a first-class event. The conditions certainly looked far from ideal, but "the show must go on", and it certainly did! By the way, you might want to correct the date in the description - you meant July, not August.
Thank you Jim, this year has definitely been interesting at times for kite flying. I’m hoping August will be better than July for us. Oops - thank you for pointing out that I’m not a time traveller yet! 🙈😂, hopefully corrected now.
This looks so amazing! Thanks for sharing. Im looking to attend one of the days with my kids, is it the same throughout the 3 days? Im leaning towards the friday
Thank you. The kites change throughout the weekend and are very much weather dependent. I think the Friday will have more in the sky as the day goes on as some fliers arrive, I know we can’t get there until the evening for the night flight, which is a lovely experience. I’d keep an eye on the weather forecast and make a decision nearer the time to which day you go. Hope this helps and that you have an amazing time when you visit.
Thank you Carl, it is a lovely friendly intimate kite festival which allows great interaction with the public. The kites you mentioned are by Jorgan Moller Hansen and now owned and flown by Felix Mottram.www.felixmottram.com/decorators/collection.html
I've only just encountered this channel (referred by a friend) but had viewed your website a number of times over the years and missed the link to RU-vid. Thank you for uploading these videos, showing varying aspects of kite-flying in the UK. I'm not a fan of the huge PLK line laundry (their HQ is only an hour or so from where I live in Christchurch, NZ), but you have a lot of very good "real" kites too, and I shall look out for your future videos.
That was a grand display, Sarah. It's not often these days that we see a kite festival with actual kites, rather than the large and ugly line-laundry from PLK swamping the event and distorting everyone's ideas of what constitutes a kite. Many, many years ago I lived in Dunstable, and if I were back there now I'd certainly have attended and enjoyed your festival. You seem to have a great team of enthusiastic fliers, something we lack here, unfortunately. Well done!
I’ve found this comment difficult to reply to as I love flying both sparred and inflatable kites and believe the sky is big enough to be shared by all. There is as much skill involved in designing, making and flying all varieties of kites and each deserve their place in the sky. The only ones I object to are the blatant copies we seem to be seeing more of. We do have some great flyers here in the UK and Europe that I’m lucky to be able to call friends after sharing the flying field with them over the years. This is what I love about our hobby.
@@sarahbindon I agree, Sarah, that it's nice to see the big line laundry as well as all the other items, and you and Peter put on some lovely displays. What I don't like is when a kite festival is totally dominated by the PLK items to the exclusion of almost everything else. As you know, the big items need a lot of space, and there are usually areas reserved exclusively for them. When this takes over much, or all, of the space available, it squeezes out all the rest. You seem to strike a good balance in the UK, but some events in America and to a lesser extent Europe, plus one or two in Asia, seem to involve a monopoly by the big stuff, all line laundry, which gives a false impression of what kite-flying is all about. We sometimes find that in New Zealand, too. Trying to encourage new people into flying when they think the only kite is something worth thousands of dollars is next to impossible, sadly. And we need new people, of course, as we kite-fliers don't have a magic potion for living forever. Your mix of kites and line laundry seems ideal, and I look forward to seeing more of your videos through your summer months.
We do have a lot of new kite flyers especially in the north of England where we are but they mostly fly inflatable kites from China, there don’t seem to be as many flyers that fly both inflatables and sparred kites and even fewer that design and make sparred kites. It is a shame when some arenas at festivals are set up for show or sparred and not a mix especially for flyers like ourselves that fly both. It’s one of the reasons we don’t do as many festivals now and prefer to head to the coast and do our own thing.
Thank you Sarah for a rare treat to see so many single line kites being enjoyed. They are often over shadowed by the giant show kites and laundry. Some where obviously home made creations. I can imagine the sound of all those Vietnamese flute kites. Not often you would get to see them in the UK. Excellent video. I will watch again.
Thank you. This particular event lends itself more to the smaller sparred kites due to the surrounding trees and often tricky wind conditions. I believe the flute kites will be at another event in a few weeks so I’ll get to enjoy them again. I’m lucky that I have a good collection of both ‘show’ and sparred kites and always try to capture both on my films. I find the public are drawn to the event by the large show kites but then sit down and enjoy all. Luckily there’s plenty of room in the sky for all.
Thank you. The wind was kind to us most evenings. We’re really enjoying the Jac, it’s a fantastic lifter and a crowd pleasure though I think the tigers seem to bring a crowd and lots of photo opportunities.
Not sure where you are based but if in the UK you could google ‘kite calendar’ where there’s a list of events of ‘Fortuna Found’ has events listed from across the globe. Hope this helps
I do appreciate your video and editing skills. The creative viewpoints and blending of natural sounds and music. You must have some professional training ? Oh and the kites are great too. Your Starfish is very special. Are you still filming it all with your Insta. 360?
Thank you, I really appreciate your lovely comments. No professional training for me, all self taught with a lot of luck thrown in. This is my first time using DaVinci Resolve for the editing, there’s a lot to learn about it but it’ll hopefully add a bit more to the films as well once I get to grips with it. All of this was filmed on an iPhone this time, it’s great to use as it’s always in my pocket and easy to use one handed when you’ve got a kite in the other hand. I’ll try and use the inst 360 next time we’re down there as I really need to get used to it as well.
Another excellent video and beautifully edited. So glad you enjoyed your time. Can be a bit challenging both flying and filming. Loved the camera flowing through the tails. Did you use a pole extension? Thanks again for sharing.
Thank you so much. The camera flowing through the tails is one of my favourite bits. We had just invested in a Insta360 camera which is a 360 camera on a pole and this was its first trip out. It was used for some of the flowing tail bits. It looks like it will be a great addition to our camera bag.
Thank you so much, I’m glad you enjoyed watching it. It can be difficult sometimes to get around to all the arenas whilst I’m flying the show kites but I have a love of all kites so try to capture them as well.
