About Kitewind

Every wind app shows you one thing. One shows a weather model, another a live wind meter, a third the current. Kitewind puts them side by side, weighs them by how well they did before, and turns it into an answer for you: can you go out, and with which kite?

A hobby projectMade by a kiter on the Dutch coast3 minute read

It started with curiosity. First about the current: why do you ride upwind with ease one day and drift away the next, in the same wind? Then about the weather models. There are ten of them, they rarely agree, and nobody could say which one is right most often on our coast. So that was measured, by putting each model's forecasts next to the real readings from the wind stations.

And then there were sisters who had just started kiting and asked the same question every week: will it work on Saturday, and what should I bring? An app with ten graphs does not help a beginner. A page that says yes, from two o'clock, with your 9-metre kite does. That overview became Kitewind.

So what you see is a blend of ten weather models. They are weighted by how well they did over more than three thousand measured hours on our coast: the ones that were right more often count for more. The live readings sit alongside, so you can see whether the forecast is right at this moment, and the current and the wind angle are added too.

01Nobody makes money from it

Kitewind is free. There are no ads and you do not need an account. The costs are a domain name and a small server, and that is manageable.

There are no deals with brands, shops, schools or YouTube channels either. No sponsorship and no links that someone earns from. Anyone mentioned here is mentioned because it is useful to you, and usually does not even know it.

02An estimate, not advice

Everything you see here is an estimate: the wind, the gusts, the current, the score and above all the kite size. That size comes from a rule of thumb based on your weight and the forecast wind. The rule does not know how well you ride, what type of kite you have, how gusty it really is on the beach, or what is lying along the shore.

Weather models are regularly 3 to 5 knots off, and sometimes more. So look at the water yourself, see what the others are rigging up and ask the people who are there every week. If in doubt, take a size smaller or do not go.

You decide, and you are responsible for that decision. Kitewind gives no guarantee that the data is correct or that the site is available, and is not liable for damage or injury from using it.

03Give us a shout

Is something wrong, is your spot missing, do you have an idea, or do you just want to say it blew yesterday as promised? It is all welcome. Pick what fits and the email is already half written for you.

• Something is wrongThe site said 22 knots and you stood on the beach with 12.
• My spot is missingOr it is listed, but the safe wind directions are wrong.
• I have an ideaSomething you miss, or something that could be simpler.
• Just a question or a helloThat is fine too.

A reply can take a few days. This happens alongside work, and on windy days it does not happen at all. Then we are out on the water ourselves.

04What the site knows about you

Very little. There are no cookies and no accounts. Your weight, your kites and your spot stay in your own browser and never leave it.

The site does count how many people visit and which spot they pick, without knowing who you are. Your location is only used if you press the location button yourself, and then roughly rounded, to put the spots near you at the top.

05Where the data comes from

The weather models come via Open-Meteo. The readings and the current come from Rijkswaterstaat (the Dutch agency for waterways and the coast), and the beach wind meter is from windmeting.nl. The photos in the articles are free to use and scaled down for the web. The creator and the licence are shown under each image.