Canal Days
August 1, 2004


The winds started off slow but by noon steady winds took over. You could launch pretty much anything you had in your kite bag! Russ Kelly's 15 foot tall "Blue Meanie" sure has an inviting smile!
As you can see many kites filled the sky in no time. Three massive Sutton Flowforms took center stage. Some of these flowforms are as large as 450 square feet. Believe it or not this photo only shows part of the huge kite display at Port Colborne.
Past rumours of Jim Poy being spotted flying kites again can now be confirmed. Jim Poy and his wife popped up at Port Colborne just to say hi. Jim spotted my Joel Scholz Vampire Bat and walked right over to me. We both had a blast taking turns flying the quad line kite. Many of you know that Jim has many of Joel Scholz's original kite designs. Joel used to sponser Jim and his son Jeff when they flew pairs under the name "Aviators". Jim had packed a few of these kites in the car just in case he got the itch to fly. Of course he brought out those beautiful Joel Scholz creations a little later. At Bob Whites request Jim performed a couple of kite routines using a dog stake technique. Running the fly lines through The dog stake allows you to fly the kite backwards. You end up flying beside your kite. The truly Funny part involved trying to play Jim's music. He had brought an old "cassette tape" with his preffered music selections. Poor Bob White stumbled with the "old" technology and eventualy had to sub in his own CD selection. Bob made some jokes about how modern flyers all use CD's now. It was all in good fun and Jim Poy demonstrated that he can still fly and to any format or style of music :-)
A close up of Russ Kelley's new 450 Sutton Flowform. You can also just make out Ziggy's large Delta. I know it looks small in the photo but it really is a 20 foot delta kite. Russ' huge kite makes anything else look like it's just a "little" kite. Ziggy picked up this delta kite during his last visit to Poland. The large kite was given to Ziggy as a thank you gift for his help with past events. Ziggy has gone to this annual Polish kite festivals several times in the past.
Nobody is sure who owns this great looking butterly kite but it's A great photo by Arlene Ische!
A great aerial view of the Marina. You should be able to make out the Wind Riders Announcers booth. "Hi Bob"! Kap picture by Kerry St Dennis.
Another nice aerial shot by Kerry St Dennis. I can make out Ziggy's, Dennis' and Kerry's pop up tents. You get to see what the kites perspective looks like.
Kerry's new stack of eight quad kites. Kerry performed several demos with the stack of kites. It really looks great! Kerry, won the newest never before heard of award for, "best stacked flier". A few chuckles could be heard as Kerry accepted his award prize.
Bill Peart and Kerry St Dennis performed pairs routines to the delight of many. You can't see the kites but they flew matching blue and green Prism Ozone kites. They even had their music on CD just for Bob!!
The biggest surprise of the day went to Dennis Ische. Dennis took his Renegade Strings rok all the way to first place in the rok battle! Dennis and Jim Gibson(yellow rok) tied in both heats but taking scores to 6 decimal points, Dennis came out the winner. I emailed Vaino for this info but he was not sure who came in third. Way to go Dennis! We knew you had it in you!
A seventy Five square foot Mega Sled takes to the sky on it's first flight. There was already a lot of square footage being covered by several flowforms. I decided to limit the sled height to about 75 feet to avoid the heavy traffic up above. I attached The 9 ft bear and 10 ft froggy. they enjoyed staying out of harms way. it was scary up there sometimes!
I know it's hard to make this guy out as he has his shirt off but,.. it's Ziggy! He has an awesome figure! Okay you figured it out as it's not really a picture of Ziggy but it is his own line laundry. They do look pretty close don't you think? It was Ziggy's own cougar like frame that won the award for "most sexy body". Women simply melted every time that hunk of a man walked by! The Wind Riders crack staff(read women)created this new category just for Ziggy! Sometimes it's fun to just get noticed right Ziggy?
Last photo of the rok battle to complete this series. You can make out the Great lakes new kite arch flying in the background. Bob White Vaino Raun and all the Wind Riders should be thanked for pulling off another great event! We all appreciate the efort that is made by all involved. Also, Many thanks to Kerry St Dennis, Lucy Jonkman, Dennis & Arlene Ische for providing all the great photos.
- Carlos Simoes
Archives, Main Directory