Good day to you all

The nice North Easters have brought a bit of action to the Cheltenham Beach and Takapuna Beach areas. We have received some complaints that "those kite board things are going faster than 5 knots. there are swimmers in the water and someone will get hurt".

We visited Cheltenham Beach yesterday afternoon in the patrol boat and observed the action. There were about 9 kiters out and they were going faster than 5 knots within 200m.

This all said the behaviour we saw seemed reasonable with no swimmers in the water and the kiters keeping as far offshore as possible and to the north end of the beach when closer in. Please be aware of the requirements when you are on the water and keep as far offshore as possible and away from swimmers.

As always self policing will work better for yourselves and us alike. If you have any questions or concerns we can be contacted on 09 362 0396, email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

have a good time in the NE breeze


Jim Dilley
Deputy harbourmaster
Auckland Regional Council

Not impressed with what we saw at Takapuna though:
Riding lit in ankle deep water less than 10m from people walking on the beach(bailing right in front of a lady with a push-chair)
Navigating around swimmers.
Riding and jumping through surfskiers having a club event.
Jumping in the shallows.

Reckless and inconsiderate. Surprised there wasnt more complaints. Probably the lack of NE this season that hasnt seen this beach banned from kiting yet.

If it was that bad then I hope you said something to the person concerned.

Yup, some were spoken to. Would be nice to see some involvement from the rest of the community on this. Seems it's not quite the done thing in Auckland though. Not that I've noticed anyway...