The man who is always gone with the wind
Words by Trent Moon | Images by Lars Terkelsen/ Cabrinha Kites
The wind in South Africa’s beautiful Cape Town is so viscous it plucks the chooks before they’re even slaughtered for the stew pot.
The port town on the shores of Table Bay experiences fresh breezes on 68 days of the year (that’s 18.7 percent of the days in the year for those of you reader who are really into your weather statistics).
The region gets uncomfortably hot when the Berg Wind, meaning “mountain wind”, blows from the Karoo interior for a couple of weeks in February and early March.
In late spring and early summer a strong wind from the south-east, known locally as the Cape Doctor, blows away air pollution; this wind is caused by a high-pressure system situated in the South Atlantic to the west of Cape Town, known as the South Atlantic High. Suffice to say, Cape Town is the perfect place to live if you’re in to kitesurfing.
That’s certainly why Danish born kite surfer, Nick Jacobsen, packed his wind chimes and relocated to the city that sits under the watchful eye of Table Mountain.
Nick first started kite surfing in 2003 – a period in the sport’s history when kite development was notoriously risky and dangerous – and immediately set about breaking both feet and wrists, along with multiple fingers and ribs.
Nowadays, the extreme sports star competes on the Virgin Kitesurf World Championships and regularly performs high-risk kitesurfing stunts.
READ the full article about Nick Jacobsen in WTW Feb/Mar 2016 issue out now! It just takes a few clicks to get your copy delivered to your doorstep.
