For many water sports enthusiasts, the day begins with checking the wind forecasts. However, whether the conditions at specific spots are right depends not only on wind strength but also on many other factors. The KiteReady app aims to help interpret the data and provide specific recommendations. Cedric Le Goupil, the app’s developer, explains when it’s a ‘go’.
Cedric, how did you come up with the idea of launching the KiteReady app? What’s your background?
I grew up on the water. My father had a boat, and I started sailing when I was just a little boy – first in an Optimist, then later in a 420. I’ve been hooked on gliding ever since. I’d been dreaming of kitesurfing for fifteen years before I plucked up the courage to give it a go. My first lesson was two and a half years ago, in Portugal, together with my children. Back home, I bought my kit straight away, and off I went. But here’s the thing: for me, every session is a real logistical challenge. I live two hours away from the spots. It has to fit in with my work and the children’s timetables. Like everyone else, I study Windguru, Windy and Windfinder. And like everyone else, I’ve come unstuck a few times because of them. A wind direction I’d misread, gusts, the tides. Once I drove two hours to the Brouwersdam, firmly convinced it would be perfect. I arrived, but because of the tidal conditions, the water looked completely different from what I’d imagined. I turned back without even getting out on the water. On the way home, I thought to myself, there must be an easier way to see at a glance whether the conditions suit me. Should I head out with peace of mind, or should I stay at home? KiteReady was born out of that question.
What sets the KiteReady app apart from ‘normal’ wind forecasts such as Windfinder or Windy?
These are excellent tools, and I use the same public models as they do. I don’t make my own forecast; I interpret them. The clearest example is this: Windy tells you there’ll be an 18-knot north-westerly. It doesn’t tell you that this north-westerly wind is side-onshore at that exact spot. And that’s precisely what determines whether you head out or not. The same wind direction can be perfect at one spot and unrideable at the next, ten kilometres further on. Nobody can do that interpretation for you.
I don’t make my own predictions; I interpret them
Three factors make up the rating: the wind strength relative to the usable wind window at this spot for your level, the direction – as it relates to the actual coastline – and the gusts. And three things immediately set the rating to zero, even before any calculations are made, because this is about safety, not comfort: too much wind, an offshore direction, and thunderstorms. The tides are displayed but do not factor into the rating. That might come as a surprise – after all, they ruined the session I’ve just told you about. But the quality of the tide data isn’t consistent everywhere, and I don’t want to approve or rule out a session based on data that I don’t trust at every spot. It informs the rider; it doesn’t make the decision for them.
What forecasting models does your app use?
When it comes to the data itself, I don’t rely on a single model. I combine several – ECMWF, ICON, GFS, plus a regional model depending on the region – and take the median as the consensus. The discrepancy between the models serves as a measure of reliability for me, and it is displayed: If the models contradict each other, you should know about it. And wherever I have a weather station, I compare the forecast over around ninety days with the actual wind speed measured there and correct the model’s error. One more difference – and it’s a significant one: you can subscribe to your spot and receive a notification as soon as it turns green for your level. Windy won’t wake you up to tell you that conditions will be good in your area tomorrow morning.
It’s not you who checks ten times a day – the Spot notifies you
Whether certain conditions are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ also depends to a large extent on the user’s skill level and expectations. How are personal preferences taken into account?
That’s the crux of the matter, and you’ve hit the nail on the head. There are three levels: beginners, advanced riders and experts. This isn’t just a filter applied to a single rating; the whole equation changes. The usable wind window isn’t the same. An offshore wind direction presents a completely different challenge for a beginner than it does for an experienced rider. The tolerance for gusts shifts. And for a beginner, certain situations trigger a safety downgrade, such as water depth or waves. The result: the same time period, the same spot, the same hour can be ‘green’ for an expert and ‘red’ for a beginner. That’s exactly what I was looking for.
How many adverts are currently on file?
246 locations in 49 countries, around a hundred of which are in Europe. Germany is still significantly under-represented on my list; that’s the next step in expanding it: Fehmarn and the Baltic Sea coast.
How are new places added? You actually need local knowledge to add a new place, don’t you?
Your question hits the nail on the head, because that’s exactly where the difficulty lies. A spot in the KiteReady app isn’t created simply by placing a GPS point on a map. I collate a lot of data that’s scattered all over the place, often unstructured, and validate a spot’s wind sectors manually: which directions are suitable, which are offshore, and which are onshore?The crucial thing is what happens whilst this validation hasn’t taken place: the spot doesn’t show any colour at all. It appears as a new spot, without a rating. I never bypass this rule. If I’m mistaken and consider a direction to be suitable when it’s actually offshore, I display a lovely green that sends someone out onto the open sea. Currently, 231 out of 246 spots have been validated. The other fifteen are still pending. There’s a second correction, this time regarding wind strength. Where I have a weather station, I compare the model against the actual measured wind over around ninety days and correct the deviation. But essentially you’re right: there are things no model will ever pick up. A rider wrote to me about Sotavento, saying that whilst it’s doable for beginners, the wind there is gusty due to the side-off-shore location and the lagoon only fills up from time to time. No weather dataset in the world will tell you that. You have to have been there to know. That’s exactly why I’d like to work with schools. Nobody knows a spot better than the people who teach there every day.
Our readers are mainly windsurfers and wingfoilers – would you say that your ratings make sense for this target group as well?
The thresholds are calibrated for kitesurfing. The underlying data – wind, gusts, direction relative to the coast, tides – is the same for everyone. However, the usable wind window and the way of interpreting the direction are different in windsurfing. A windsurfer will nevertheless find the basic information useful. The rating itself is a kitesurfing rating, and that’s how it should be interpreted. Wing foiling is the closest comparable sport, and that’s probably the first discipline I’ll expand the app to cover once it’s up and running. Windsurfing might come next, but I know less about that, and I’d rather tell you that than pretend otherwise.
How can your app be used, and how much does it cost?
It’s a web app, so you don’t need to download anything from a store. You just open kiteready.app In your browser, choose your spot and your level, and off you go. You don’t need an account to have a look. You can also add it to your mobile’s home screen, in which case it works just like a proper app. And if you create an account, you can subscribe to your spots and receive a notification or an email as soon as the conditions for your level turn green. That’s the part I like best, because it turns the logic on its head: it’s not you checking ten times a day, but the spot that gets in touch with you. The whole thing is free. And the forecast section, which tells you whether you can head out to your spot today, is set to remain free. There’s no subscription fee involved.
Cedric, thank you for the interview.
Manuel Vogel
Editor surf