Last weekend I went out on a kite boat in the North Bay with Saul Griffith of Squid Labs and Tim Anderson and other friends.

It’s like kite surfing except with a sailboat. The kite boat goes faster than a standard katamaran and you get very wet. It’s totally awesome. We used a 21 meter kite that Saul designed for his sister’s company Monkey Kites.

We bought two beat-up Hoby Cat hulls from Craigslist and Tim, Nick Papadakis and Saul put the first boat together on Saturday in the Squid Labs garage. Tim wrote a kite boat how-to on Instructables using the photos Ulla and I took. Tim also does other unconventional sailing. He wrote an incredible story on how he tried to sail to Cuba.

On Sunday I went out on the kite boat with Saul and Patrick another Squid Labs friend. The wind was stronger and after some wrestling shoulder-deep in the water we got the kite fastened to the boat. As soon as we climbed aboard the boat shot off like a bullet. We jigged for a while before the rudder snapped and Saul and Patrick had to manouver the boat back to the beach.

Saul fixed the rudder with some wood and inner tubes and soon they were off again.