Dave Ballard lives his life by the elements and his senses. The elements tell him when to farm his land in Mount Ulla and when to fly across the water. He developed an appreciation for both the elements and his senses while growing up in the Lake Wylie area. On days when the lake was off-limits because of cold or other conditions, Ballard took to the backwoods on a four-wheeler. Ballard also spent his summers on the Mount Ulla land, a parcel running alongside N.C. 801 that his grandfather farmed.
Ballard watched the weather dictate what could and couldn’t be done until his intuition grew reliable enough to sense the direction of the wind and his senses grew sharp enough to observe the changing weather. Once a West Coast surfer, Ballard now farms that land in Mount Ulla daily with one eye trained to the wind, determining whether the elements are right for an afternoon on Lake Norman, where he can enjoy his new athletic passion, kiteboarding.
Pulse-pounding water sportsLake Wylie also shaped his penchant for water and adrenaline sports.
“I took to water skiing at an early age, and I have just been hooked on water ever since,” says Ballard, 47. “Water is a beautiful thing because you can get really extreme and then come down to a water landing rather than something like a hard earth.”
In his early adulthood, Ballard headed for Carolina Beach, where he made a living by surfing and opening surf shops. Eventually, he left North Carolina for the waves of the West Coast. But two decades after surfing captured his imagination, Ballard felt the need to return home.
“My family is getting older,” he says.
He settled into the family business, New Moon Farm, and began growing organic produce as part of a community-supported agriculture model. And while the water was still calling for him, as a grower, he couldn’t just leave his crops for a week to surf the Atlantic. It was then that Ballard took up kiteboarding.
“Lake Norman is so close. I can just work on my farm and, when the wind picks up, I can drive 15 minutes down the road and kiteboard. It keeps me sane and gives me my fix,” he says.
Big waves not requiredStill in its infancy as a sport, kiteboarding relies on a controllable power kite that pulls the harnessed rider across the water and into the air with a control bar and line as he stands on a small surfboard, wakeboard or kiteboard that has straps or bindings for the feet. The kiteboarder pilots the kite while steering the board, creating a unique challenge because the body is the only connection between the kite and the board. Kiteboarders, in essence, navigate the wind more than the water. When they are riding, they can use the kite to jump off the water – a foot or two at the beginning. Pros can hit 40 to 50 feet off the water.
In 2006, kiteboarders numbered between 150,000 and 200,000.
“It’s a really intense sport, but you don’t have to have big waves to have big fun,” he says. “You can catch 30 or 40 feet in the air without big water. You are getting pulled by a kite, the same way that a sailboat would work. You have to use the same principles as a sailor,” Ballard explains.
And as an organic farmer, Ballard also appreciates the low-impact nature of the sport.
“You don’t have to have all this stuff like with windsurfing. I can put all my equipment in the trunk of my car,” he says.
Safe spot on the lakeOn Lake Norman, Ballard often heads to Ramsey Creek Park with three fellow area kiteboarders. The point there provides ideal wind conditions, and there are safe launch locations.
Safety is of key concern in kiteboarding. More than 60 people have died in kiteboarding accidents in the past five years, with many of the fatalities resulting from an inexperienced boarder being lofted or dragged out of control, resulting in a collision. Even on Lake Norman, Ballard has witnessed unsafe situations that have influenced when and where he and his friends kitesurf.
“Lake Norman gets hugely populated in the summertime,” he says. “A lot of people have never seen kiting, and they want to get close to you to see what’s going on. And sometimes they think they are coming to see if I need help, and they put themselves in dangerous positions.”
For safety reasons, Ballard and his friends have a boat accompany them when they are on the more populated areas of the lake. It also helps that July and August, the lake’s busiest times, rarely offer ideal wind conditions for kiteboarding.
Although kiting may catch the eye of some of the boaters on Lake Norman as an interesting sport, Ballard and others caution against trying it alone.
“It’s still dangerous,” he warns. “There have been some major injuries. As far as I am concerned, you need to have lessons for this sport.”
Kiting is a sport that women can enjoy as much as men. The sport favors someone with finesse and an intuitive sense of the outdoors. It’s less expensive than some of the other water sports and has more compact gear. All of these elements have allowed kiting to sate Ballard’s desire to spend time on the water.
“Water and earth are beautiful elements to me,” he says, squinting from the sun as he looks out over the fields that yield a hundred different crops. Guinea fowl peck through the yard. A hint of a breeze begins, and he turns his head up, perhaps waging whether the breeze will turn into just a 12 mile per hour wind, enough to lead him to Lake Norman for the afternoon. The breeze stills, and Ballard finishes his thought.
“I plan on kiting until I am elderly.”
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