Hardelot 2002

Hardelot was a strange weekend this year.

Hardelot is south of Boulougne and therefore quickly reached after leaving the ferry port or shuttle terminal. Generally, the Brits get an early morning channel crossing and arrive just before lunch. Usually the tide is in and nothing much happens until the beach is revealed again after lunch. This year however very high, later tides and a very strong on shore wind lead to the beach not being flyable on Saturday until about 4:00!

Crosslines, Bitter & Twisted, The Flying Squad and one Frenchman joined in to put on a 13 person mega-team with four line Revolution kites in wind approaching 30mph.

The following morning all the Brits, and not many others were out on the beach early to take advantage of the low tide. Unfortunately the wind was stronger than the previous day and forecast to get stronger. Rain was also on its way. Everyone got some teamwork done. Then we got together for another multi-line mega-team in some pretty horrible conditions. Its quite amazing what you can do in terms of demo with these kites. More than 5 minutes with dual line kites would have been too exhausting but flying multi-line we kept going until the tide threatened to deluge our boots. The crowd should have been impressed but, by now "his" dog had probably run away to find shelter.

So it was now off to lunch and decide what to do in the afternoon. High tide generally arrives about an hour after the comparable tide of the previous day so we did not expect to be able to get on the beach until after 5:00. A wander down to the beach at about 3:30 suggested that that estimate was unlikely to be wrong, and the wind was stronger. The organisers, rather shame faced, admitted that a number of flyers had gone home or not turned up because of the weather. The picnic lunch they had organised had gone largely uneaten. Indeed there was little or no public to entertain even if there had some beach. Crosslines were booked on to the 6:00 Shuttle and after a walk up the coast and back we decided to make our excuses and see if we could get an earlier train.

To be fair, the weather was completely out of the organiser's hands. The state of the tide was something you might have thought would have been given more consideration but this was apparently the only weekend that the local council could make the beach available. The strong on shore wind probably contributed in pushing the tide up the beach quickly and keeping it there longer than expected. This festival is always a friendly low key event, which Crosslines always enjoy. This year there was even more time available to sample the gastronomic delights that abound.

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