Fort Worden 2006

Fort Worden Kitemakers Conference 2006 was a blast. I built a couple of great kites, reconnected with a lot of kite folks, and even won an amazing kite in the raffle!

Twisted Log Cabin Kite

Of course, I had to attend John Freeman's class. I've been to every one of his classes since I started going to the Fort in 2001; and each time I came away with a wonderful and unusual kite. This year was no exception.
The twisted log cabin kite is sparred like a giant fighter; but being 5 x 5 ft it requires some serious rods. Thanks to the flexibility of the bowed cross spar it has an extremely wide wind range.

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Guatemalan Corona Kite

Randy Shannon taught this variation of a traditional Guatemalan kite. It is constructed of bamboo (from a window blind), cotton string, and tissue paper. In spite of its fragile appearance it flies really well.

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Canard

I won this kite at the raffle (a big feature at every conference - there's always an astounding number of raffle items including some spectacular kites). Carsten Domann designed it and it's commercially available from multiple sources. The Canard is an amazing flier, gliding on the wind with very little pull at all. This would be a great kite for thermal soaring.

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