Encourage New Kiters...?
Posted: Tue Oct 15, 2013 8:21 am
Do you find your enthusiasm for kiting leads you to encourage others to take it up when they ask you about the sport? If so, did you ever regret doing so?
We're kiting at the Thermalito Afterbay Sunday; upper teens/big kites; a woman windsurfer frustrated the wind wasn't blowing enough to get on the water came over while we were taking a break to ask about kiting. Where do we recommend for lessons? How hard is it to learn? And what about the kitemares?
We assured her that with proper lessons, kiting is relatively safe; shared info, advantages, etc. Later on, a kiter unfamiliar with the site kited out across the small bay from the launch and into the main channel and back. I noticed he was cutting close to the point with a tree on it as he headed back into the bay, and he was raising his kite up to miss the tree. I went into the channel, turned around and saw his kite spinning in the wind off the treetop. He misjudged a branch sticking out that grabbed a line as he went by, and that caused an immediate turn of the kite into a spiral that lifted him out of the water so fast he couldn't get to his QR before landing on the woman windsurfer's car, indenting the hood and roof and scraping the paint. The kiter was thankfully not seriously injured.
Lessons (re-)learned:
1. Be careful letting your enthusiasm for kiting lead to encouraging others.
2. Watch out for stray branches from trees or brush along the shoreline catching a line: they can be deadly.
We're kiting at the Thermalito Afterbay Sunday; upper teens/big kites; a woman windsurfer frustrated the wind wasn't blowing enough to get on the water came over while we were taking a break to ask about kiting. Where do we recommend for lessons? How hard is it to learn? And what about the kitemares?
We assured her that with proper lessons, kiting is relatively safe; shared info, advantages, etc. Later on, a kiter unfamiliar with the site kited out across the small bay from the launch and into the main channel and back. I noticed he was cutting close to the point with a tree on it as he headed back into the bay, and he was raising his kite up to miss the tree. I went into the channel, turned around and saw his kite spinning in the wind off the treetop. He misjudged a branch sticking out that grabbed a line as he went by, and that caused an immediate turn of the kite into a spiral that lifted him out of the water so fast he couldn't get to his QR before landing on the woman windsurfer's car, indenting the hood and roof and scraping the paint. The kiter was thankfully not seriously injured.
Lessons (re-)learned:
1. Be careful letting your enthusiasm for kiting lead to encouraging others.
2. Watch out for stray branches from trees or brush along the shoreline catching a line: they can be deadly.