Dreya Bennett: Kite surfing

Wind rider

In the often wind-hewn coastal town of Newquay, Dreya Bennett works out of a glass-making studio. A former professional kite surfer and world record holder, Dreya is not only a familiar face on the North coast sands, but an important part of Watergate’s history, having co-founded the Extreme Academy kite surfing school back in 1999. The Extreme Academy is now home to Wavehunters surf school and hire on the sea lane.

Now, Dreya sees the wind purely in terms of kite sizes. “I’ll talk about it as ‘four-metre weather’ or ‘a 10-metre day’,” she says. Dreya explains how the stronger the wind, the smaller the kite you need to get power out of it. In a professional career that saw her ranked as high as third in the world, she’s ridden that wind across the globe. In the Swiss Alps, she learned how the thin air of high altitudes is disconcertingly weak, even when the wind is howling. In Cabarete, in the Dominican Republic, meanwhile, the winds seem to gift the surfer a delicious extra half-second of coveted ‘hang time’: suspended 30 feet in the air, hang time is when the kiter feels most free. She’s actually flying, the wind making literal the stuff of dreams.

Anywhere the wind blows

A true master of the skies, Dreya is now flying her kite into new territory. Taking her wind-foiling skills inland to Stithians Reservoir and making her mark in the realm of wing foiling. 

Smoother, faster, wing foiling is a slight departure from kite surfing, which uses a board attached to a hydrofoil —a wing-like surface that lifts it out of the water as it moves, allowing for faster movement and reduced drag. The riders can be harnessed to their kites, but Dreya favours the handheld approach, which allows for more dynamic movement. “The thing that’s captured everyone's imagination is that you can ride unbroken swell for miles,” Dreya explains, and “in high winds, riders can reach adrenalin-inducing speeds.”

While Dreya still takes to the ocean with her foil — and has even found herself careening across the warmer waters of the Greek archipelago —it's the flat water she’s found inland that has become a real destination for wing foiling. “Because the lake is flat, it’s a wonderful place to learn and practice tricks. There are no tides to have to think about, no swell, shore break, wind direction, no problems really! It’s got me out on the water a lot more than when I had to navigate all the conditions of the sea with kite surfing.”

And it’s also opened up a whole new community that Dreya’s tapped into, “We've met lots of people through the sport”, she says, “it's been really lovely. Whether you’re a windsurfer or a kiter, a surfer or someone who’s never tried a wind or ocean sport before, the movement out there is so enjoyable.” 

These days the wind dictates every holiday she takes with her husband, Layton, an avid windsurfer. Her choice spots are the Gulf of Roses and Tarifa in Spain.  But it could be anywhere that’s blowing. “For us, we always follow the wind”, she says.