During the Great Lock-down of 2020 I started sewing kites again after some years. I purchased quite a basic sewing machine and ordered some good quality rip-stop nylon.

The Pearson Roller interested me back then because of it’s elegant design and reputation for reliable flight characteristics. It’s well known for it’s high angle of flight and stability in quite fairly wide range of wind, though it’s not too fond of blustery wind and ill-tempered gusts. It is the ideal summer/ early autumn kite and can be coaxed into the air with some patience and time even in very modest winds.

I have made several Alec Pearson Rollers over the years. It’s a lovely soaring kite design by a renowned kite maker. I thought I could produce some variants without straying too far from Pearson’s refined simplicity. I have used the same 48″x48″ dimensions as the Pearson Roller. I have made some modifications; the main being the removal of the connecting strip between the fore and aft sails. This makes for setting up and breaking down of the kite more convenient as I don’t really like having to feed the central spar through the connecting sleeve each time. I have kept the rudder dimensions fairly close to the original.

One change I have made to the rudder is that instead of a sleeve for the spar which is then sealed in, I have made pockets to be able to remove the albeit modest spar. This allows the kite to be separated from all of it’s spars and can be folded up more easily.

I do not use binding-tape for the edges of the Roller. Instead I make a generous hem and double it over. This makes the process a lot simpler and quicker to produce. I always found binding tape got me into a bind myself.

The spar pockets on the roller are mostly straight forward. I find the aft -sail horizontal pockets more fiddly to make and I have tried some variations though the original design seems to work best as shown in Maxwell Eden’s excellent book “Kiteworks“.

Since I live in the Scottish Highlands I’ve called these variants “High Rollers”. My sewing skills have steadily improved with each one and they all seem to fly very well. They do indeed have a high angle of flight in warm and steady winds. They are really fun to fly and at times they seem reluctant to come back to earth.