I started making kites in August '92. In that year we made a holiday trip to the danish isle of Rømø, which happens to be located just about 20km south of Fanø. We spent about two weaks of holidays there and besides doing a lot of windsurfing (which I have nearly stopped doing now...), I also bought a small stunt kite. I liked it very much letting the kite fly around, but I also discovered very soon, that there were other kites on the beach that performed much better than mine.
When I came back to Karlsruhe, I wanted to know, why my kite was not as fast as the other and why the turning radius was so big compared to some kites I had seen on the Römö-beach. I bought a book (from W. Schimmelpfennig) but fortunately our local dealer advised me to build the electron-kite.
This kite was a huge difference compared to my old one and I started to make another kite for my brother. I then discovered very soon that it would be easier with two small children to have single line kites, which you can hook to the ground and afterwards play with the children; so I started to focus mainly on those kites.
Next step was to discover that there even existed a NEWS group for this kite stuff (rec.kites) and there I got to know Peter Ulfheden (Sweden), Simo Salanne (Finland), Esben Collstrup (Danmark) and Stein and Paru Hjelland (Norway). After we had met for the first time on Fanø '93 there was no doubt which kind of hobby I will do in future. These are also the members of the informal group n@r.k (means: nordic at rec.kites).
BTW: Sending the Fanø-92 video to Peter and Simo made them actually decide to come for the first time to this kite event with their families!!
And this year (1996) we will meet again in Fanø (already for the fourth time). And while we are waiting for the next meeting to come we are exchanging videos, kites, kite ferries (:-)), plans and so on.
On Fanø ´95 Andrew took some nice pictures of my two daughters Lisa and Antonia "Toni".
In the meantime I have build around 40 (mostly different) kites. I usually build single line kites, but I also fly stunt kites, quadliners or fighter kites. One main interest in the past two years have been the soft kites of Peter Lynn from which I have built the Octopus, Manta, Centipede and the Gecko.
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