WSIKF 2006

Those who know us or who have read our Blog will know that August is the time for the week-long Washington State International Kite Festival (WSIKF) in Long Beach Washington, about 20 miles north of the Oregon border. That is about 1,100 miles from our Southern California base. We have made the journey each year since 2000 in our motorhome. This year we met about a dozen friends from our kite club, called the “Goat Hill Gang” there. The club name comes from the fact that our flying field in Costa Mesa was used to graze goats back in the days before the land was developed.

Washington coast weather is always a bit chancy and this year it was not as good as we would have liked. No rain, but a lot of overcast sky and not enough wind during the first part of the week. Things improved on Thursday giving us clear sky and good winds for the handcrafted kite competition, but more about that later.

Saturday was the prettiest day. The good kite-flying conditions brought out a lot of the beautiful big kites that help make WSIKF so much fun.







One of the Saturday events was the Parade of Colors in which many of the kiters march, carrying personal or club banners. The blue one on the left in the photo below is the Goat Hill Gang banner.



A spectacular part of the show was a mass showing of large circular “kites” called bols or crowns, each about 26 feet in diameter. The organizers brought out eighteen of them this year, an unofficial world record. I wasn’t able to get them all in one shot but here are eleven.



An event that was part of the handcrafted competition was to show and fly kite trains, which are long strings of kites. The Goat Hill Gang had taken part in an earlier organized kite-making workshop where we each made three simple kites from plastic film and wood dowels. We decorated them with goats drawings and strung 39 of them together to form our own club train, which to the amazement of many actually flew very well.



The judges were not impressed but we had a lot of fun.

The photo below is of Goat Train team and of the club’s unofficial mascot, Zak the goat-dog.



Mr Zax also helped the club win an award on “Red White and Blue Day”. Here he and our unofficial Head Goat, Rod Milburn, show their colors.



Finally, I will share with you the results of my own efforts at entering kites in the hand-crafted competition. I had two this year.

This six foot three dimensional kite is called a Waldof Box. It won a first place ribbon in its category.



My other kite is a four foot tall flat kite with a 21 foot tail and a appliqué graphic depicting an orange crate label. It won a second place in category. I am afraid ribbons are going to be harder to win from now on because these two will push my point score up to a higher skill level in the competition.