Jørgen centre right holding his Stairway to Heaven kite on Fano beach. 1986

I was greatly impressed by his beautifully made kites and unique use of graphics. Jørgen Møller Hansen was a wonderful travelling companion and throughout the tour he kept us all amused with his jokes and stories.  

We all did a lot of drinking on the tour – I remember a visit to a beer festival in Bavaria when we all had had a little too much to drink – I’d never seen such large beer tankards and at the end of the evening it was Jørgen’s navigational skills that got us all back safely to our accommodation.

I invited Jørgen several times to the Sunderland Kite Festival and he always arrived with stunning new creations – his parafoils were perfection as were all his kite designs.  You could easily find Jørgen on the kite field – find his distinctive design in the sky and you found the man.

Sadly our last meeting was in Fano 2011 along with Wolfgang and Scott.  We were in Fano to prepare a proposal for the World Wind Centre.

The group with Hanne Thyssen (Chairwoman of Fanoe Trade & Tourist Council)

Scott, Wolfgang and I were the first to arrive at our accommodation and we put together what we thought was a good proposal which was needed for our meeting with Fano Trade & Tourist Council the following day and then……….Jørgen arrived………read our proposal and literally blew it out of the water……… no graphics, far too much detail and it was black and white!!!

The three of us looked at one another a little perplexed but realised that Jørgen was absolutely right – the proposal was then edited & re-designed which took until the wee small hours and was presented very successfully a few hours later. 

Working into the middle of the night

It has been fun and a privilege to be associated with Jørgen for 25 years.  He is sadly missed by us all but will be remembered always for the fun and charming man he was and his great legacy to the kite world.

-Malcolm Goodman