Kitesurfing
Buy and sell kites and kiteboards in Panama.
When the northerly fills in over Punta Chame, the kite you want is the one that suits that afternoon’s wind, so riders here tend to own two and trade one on as their weight or board changes. Inflatable kites come up new and pre-owned with the bars that steer them, alongside twin tips for the flat lagoon, foil boards and harnesses. Some used kit comes from visitors who would rather not fly a board home again. A kite only flies safely on a bar built to work with it, so a listing that names both is worth more than one that does not.
A kite and the bar that flies it:
are bought as a pair, even when they are listed apart. The bar steers the kite and holds the quick release that lets it go in an emergency, and most bars are made for one maker’s kites. A Duotone kite can be rigged to a Cabrinha bar, but nobody tested that pairing, so treat a mismatched set as a kite still waiting for its bar. Nearly everything flown in Panama is inflatable, held in shape by an air-filled leading edge and struts: fewer struts make a light kite that turns fast in soft wind, more give the stiff feel riders want for jumping.
Twin tips, foils and the Punta Chame lagoon:
on the bay side of the peninsula the water inside the sandbars runs flat and waist-deep around mid-tide, ideal ground for a twin tip. It rides in both directions and is what almost everyone learns on, a close relative of the boards in wakeboarding. A hydrofoil board keeps flying in wind too light for a twin tip, but its mast needs depth, so foilers here plan their sessions around the tide. Directional boards borrowed from surfing suit riders who go looking for waves, built heavier than a surfboard to take the landings.
Kite sizes for a season of northerlies:
size follows wind strength and rider weight. Through the windy months the northerly trade wind blows hard at Punta Chame on most afternoons, and a rider of average build covers nearly all of it with two kites a few sizes apart: a mid-size for the strongest days and a larger one for the rest. Heavier riders go bigger, and a foil lets you drop a size. A seat harness, hook set lower, helps beginners and sore backs; everyone else wears a waist harness.
What a kite loses in two or three seasons:
a new inflatable kite in the sizes flown here runs from about $1,500 to $2,300 without a bar, and one that has done two or three seasons and still holds air sells for around $700 to $1,000. The canopy is what goes: tropical sun softens the cloth season by season, and makers refresh most models every year, which ages a kite on paper too. A twin tip of the same age keeps far more of its price, because a scuffed base rides the same as a clean one.
A second-hand kite on trial on the sand:
pump it up and leave it standing through a long lunch; if it has gone soft, a bladder or a valve is leaking. Run a hand along the leading edge and each strut for patches and lifted seams, then hold the canopy up to the light for pinholes. Cloth that hangs limp and crinkles like a paper bag has gone porous, and a porous kite flies sluggishly and loses its low end. Unwind the lines and look for knots and fraying, fire the quick release several times, since it should open cleanly and reset without a fight, and check the board for delamination at the tips, cracks around the inserts and, on a foil, nicks along the front wing. A kite packed away damp for months gives itself away by its smell, panels that stick together and bladders cracked along the folds.
Brand, model, size and year on a kite for sale:
are the four things kiters search on, so put them first, then say which bar it flies with and whether the two are sold together. State the seasons it has done, every repair and whether the bladders are original, and photograph it pumped up, front and back, with the canopy against the light. Visitors heading home sometimes sell the board and keep the kites, since the board bag is the bulky piece to fly with. If that is you, hand the fins, footstraps and screws over with it, because those are the parts that tend to end up in the suitcase.