‘Kite Man of Berkeley’ Believed Lost at Sea

Nearly three weeks overdue on a passage from El Salvador to Acapulco, the unusual 40-ft ‘hybrid wave-piercer’ sloop Seven Sisters was recently found by the Coast Guard, upside-down 400 miles southwest of Acapulco. Thomas Kardos, the boat’s owner/inventor, aka ‘The Kite Man of Berkeley’, was nowhere to be found. There were indications that Kardos, described as being "in his mid-50s," may have tried to strap himself to the main hull of his overturned boat.

Seven Sisters was a very unusual design in that she had a main hull like a monohull, but little if any keel. She also had two wave-piercing amas, thus the ‘hybrid’ name, but wasn’t particularly beamy. She had no boom, and had an electric outboard for auxiliary power.

Her last reported position was at 14° 11′ N, 095° 33′ W, and Kardos was expected to make Acapulco by November 10. Her position put her about 90 miles from shore in the middle of the Gulf of Tehauntepec, notorious on the Pacific Coast for periods of extremely strong winds and big seas, conditions that often exist hundreds of miles out to sea. It’s also possible that she was affected by the seas of Vance, a late season hurricane in the general area about that time.

Kardos was as unusual as his boat. Flying a hang glider, he stunned the 76,000 spectators — and both teams on the field — during the second quarter of the 1979 Cal-USC football game at Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium by landing on the 10-yard line. He later described the stunt as follows: "I took off from the top of the ridge at Strawberry Canyon about a mile away and 1,000 feet higher than the stadium. I flew directly above the game at an altitude of several hundred feet, then turned south for an approach. I made a 180 turn and flew between two flagpoles at the south rim, then descended over the stands to burn off height. I slowed down just above ground effect along the diagonal — longest dimension — of the field. I’m sorry, but I had to touch down before the end zone to stop safely.”

A video of the unusual stunt can be seen here.

In another video by his daughter Lena, Kardos can be seen kiteboarding San Francisco Bay 36 years ago. As memory serves us, almost nobody was kiteboarding back then.

Before and during his cruise, Kardos posted a number of YouTube videos, the most recent having been off El Salvador on June 10, 2014.