Kai's Kite Site: Miami International Kite Festival 1998

The 3rd International Kite Festival in Miami, sponsored by Little Acorns, is over. The first film is out of the camera, developed, and scanned. The second film is still in the camera (with the better pictures......). To bring you some info on the festival here some first photos from film 1 :).

Please visit Little Acorns web page to learn about the project.

The 3rd Miami international kite festival was received very well by both, participants and spectators. I would like to congratulate the organizers for a very professional organization. Overal it was one of the best organized festivals I have attended so far.

The list of invited kite fliers was large. I will give a couple of names below, including their home country.

From UK: Anne and Chris Harris (see pictures below)
From Germany: Sven Weidhase, Andreas Schmeelke (Cuxhaven), Willi Koch (Nettetal), Rolf and Henning Sturm (Duesseldorf), Holm Gottschling
From Japan: Mikio Toki, Yoshitaka Kishi
From Canada: Martin Blais (Montreal, now Florida),
From Brasil: Jose Fraga
From the USA: Team Windjammers from Detroit, Jason Benedict (announcing), Lance and Jason Wagner (Team Sudden Impact), Pete Dolphin, Dorothy and Eugene Lewandowski (Ohio), David Gomberg (Oregon), Dean Jordan (Florida), David Town (New Jersey), Mike and David Simmons (Florida), Reed Richards (Georgia), Marc Jean-Louis (Florida), Jose Sainz (California), Dennis Kucmerowski (Florida, Mr. 4hands), Team Air Advantage, Curtis Mitchell (Massachusetts), Team Valli Boyz (Pennsylvania), Robert Hawkins (South Carolina, announcer), Marguerite Stankus (Virginia, "Olympic Dove Lady"), Craig Wilson (Wisconsin, aerial photography), Philippe Robert (Florida), Mike Simmons (Florida), Bruce Flora (Florida), Bill and Suzanne Edison (Florida), Manuel Mercado (Florida), Garry and Maggie Engvall (Rhode Island), Tom, Susan, Hilary, and Alex Mason (Georgia), Debra and Bob Hurd (New York)

Spectacular are the windsocks of Anne Harris from Great Brittain. Here is she with two of the socks, more to come soon :). The "Peter Lynn Hat" she wears was given to every invited kite flier.

Please follow the links to see the following windsocks of her. Please make sure to watch for the size of people in the pictures (there are 4 hanging on the legs of the Brontosaurus). The exhibition was in a separate field and called Jurassic Place. People could go on this field for a small fee which was completely donated to Little Acorns.

Dino the Tyrannosaurus-Rex
Kimberly the Kangaroo
Spike the Ant-eater
Bronty Brontosaurus
Basking Shark

The corner of the flying field where the other Germans and I where. Two interesting box-kites of Willi Koch are on the ground. In the background Ernie (made by Andy Schmeelke) and Bert (made by Sven Weidhase) are displayed - real giants. There is some 700 squaremeter of ripstop in one of the kites. For a view of the beach in the opposite direction with two big softkites click here.

The following pictures show the efforts of Andy and Sven to bring as many spinn-bowls in the sky as they could:

First 2......
......then 3
......and 4

Some German friends. From the left: Willi Koch with box kite, Rolf and Henning Sturm. Please visit the updated Willi Koch Page to see two of the kites he displayed in Miami: a delta and a wonderful box kite .

Donald Duck soft kite by Rolf Sturm. Cool.

Wonderful kite by Pete Dolphin called Harvest Moon, next years theme kite for the pin.

Big delta kite by Craig Wilson who did a lot of aerial photography (I think he used that kite for this reason but I am not 100% certain).

Dennis Kucmerowski from Florida demonstrates that one really needs 4 hands to fly a quadline kite.

Other Miami Festival Links

Miami 1998 by Bob Pebly at KiteLife.com including a very interesting collection of aerial photographs by Craig Wilson.

Last update April 28, 1998.

Number of queries to this page since April 28, 1998:

If you have any comments please send me an e-mail: griebeno@adam.uprr.pr

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Created: 4/29/98 Updated: 5/15/98