Crazy accident

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schwede
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Crazy accident

Post by schwede » Fri Feb 15, 2013 2:20 pm

Here's pretty much a text-book example of what can go wrong with a re-launch (or launch, if you're not careful):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GmaGpJC ... r_embedded

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le noun
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Re: Crazy accident

Post by le noun » Fri Feb 15, 2013 3:22 pm

At what point do you decide to let the kite go and disconnect from it? :roll:
After the first loop I would have checked all my lines, not try to relaunch it.
If your kites goes left when you're pulling right, you know something is not right...
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Re: Crazy accident

Post by nick_80044 » Fri Feb 15, 2013 3:55 pm

It's a little hard to see because it goes by so quickly, but he gets dragged over some rocks. Ouch!

This brings up something which is a gnawing little concern always in the back of my mind. As each season comes and goes and I gain more and more experience, it's great to have that sense of security that comes with increasing mastery. Usually, things go well. But I fear that when something finally (and inevitably) *does* go wrong, I'll be ill-equipped to handle it because I'm just not used to being in crisis mode.

For example, what would happen if a line snapped? How would my kite act? What are the specific challenges if it happened onshore, or in shallow water, or far off shore, or close to rocks or other solid objects? I feel I should be ready for any of this, and I'm not.

Most organizations that regularly face emergencies (firefighters, SWAT teams, the military) train and create "what if" scenarios so they can anticipate and be prepared for bad things happening. Should we all be doing something similar? And if so, what and how?

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le noun
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Re: Crazy accident

Post by le noun » Fri Feb 15, 2013 4:13 pm

Practice... again and again.
Everytime I hot launch I look at my safety before. Put my fingers around it.
Making sure I know EXACTLY where it is even with my eyes closed.
Saved me twice so far.
Once when I messed up a self launch (back line got caught on the front line bridle, kite started looping as soon as it took off, my safety was pulled before it could even finish the loop).
Second time when I was getting dragged underwater after crashing the kite in the impact zone. Kept calm, pulled everything without really thinking about it.

I need to practice a lot more my "knife skills".
A lot of the veterans here will tell you to put yourself under stress: jumps, push-ups, etc... until you're out of breath with your harness on and then try to pull your knife out of your harness with your eyes closed.
Repeat with the other hand.

I know my self rescue skill is good because I would always practice it at alameda when I was learning and ending downwind on the beach. I would not walk up the beach with my kite in the air but do a self rescue instead.
Yes, I would have spend more time in the water learning how to go upwind by just walking up the beach with the kite up, BUT it did saved my kite (and my ass) when i ended up at 3rd ave later that season and I had to pull it before ending up on the rocks.

Now, even beyond that, I wish I was practicing my "kitemare scenarios" a lot more, but yes, most of the time, the wind is calling...
Kites: 2020 F-One Bandit: 10m.
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amlerner
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Re: Crazy accident

Post by amlerner » Fri Feb 15, 2013 4:16 pm

This footage makes me ill. One traumatic brain injury in the family and I look at things a bit differently. It takes something special to post a video like that and endure the commentary...

Maybe someone can enlighten me, but I don't understand why folks practice freestyle within a line's length of beach/rocks (I'm thinking of the racetrack in particular). Yeah, these folks are way better than me and it shortens the time needed to swap out boards, but it seems so risky. I practice upwind enough to have time to figure something out before hitting the rocks if my kite is in a spiral (only happened once before, but I had sufficient time to figure it out without the rocks looming).

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le noun
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Re: Crazy accident

Post by le noun » Fri Feb 15, 2013 4:34 pm

Same thing happens at sherman. You'll see people boosting and throwing tricks 30 ft from the beach. More than once I saw kites crashing right next to people on the beach because of this. But it doesn't seem to stop them from keep doing it... :roll:
Kites: 2020 F-One Bandit: 10m.
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drroc
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Re: Crazy accident

Post by drroc » Fri Feb 15, 2013 4:58 pm

I have wrapped my center line around the bar once in Santa Barbara when self launching. As soon as the kite starting to take off it went to 12 at insane speed and lofted my ass. I immediately went for the QR, but the hilarious thing was that because the center line was wrapped close to the QR on my old Cab bar, the QR would not work (the QR needs to slide up a bit, but the bar was blocking it). So I ened up flying into the bluff. Luckily for me the kite crashed and lost power, so that I could detach myself from it. No damage to the kite, but I got a few cuts by flying through the thorns and the lines were a terrible mess :)

The danger of wrapping the center line is that the QR wont depower the kite even if you can eject the kite. The tightly would lines won't allow the depower line to slide and the kite will be stuck in a powered up setting. You will then need to then eject your leash as well. So the lesson here is that one should always check the center line as it can completely render the QR useless.

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Re: Crazy accident

Post by Red_Element_Andy » Wed Feb 20, 2013 8:42 am

What I find most surprising about this is the rider's arrogance and pride shown in the YouTube comments.

From his video description: "...I pioneered the sport with no lessons or help, and I had some close calls because of it!..."

Comment 1: "...I learned this sport completely on my own. No one to watch and no one to talk to or help. I'm doing just fine..."

Comment 2: " ...I learned this sport completely alone and shit happend..."

Comment 3: "...All in all I learned to pay damn good attention to all of my lines!"

He is myopically focused on the technical aspect of what happened (wrapped up lines), with no self-awareness of how lessons teach you many fundamentals of how to safely set up and control a kite. Not a fail-safe --- lessons don't cover every scenario and even if they did, a beginner student can still forget some skills, but jeez. Saying - "get off my back, I didn't take lessons" without self-reflecting ("maybe I should have taken lessons following the 99.9% of advice on the subject") reflects an alarming amount of arrogance.

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Re: Crazy accident

Post by androka » Wed Feb 20, 2013 1:16 pm

I like the scene at the end when the soul leaves the body...

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Re: Crazy accident

Post by worknot » Mon Feb 25, 2013 10:08 pm

There's a good discussion on this here:

http://www.kiteforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2379430

Looks like the right thing to do would have been to reach forward and grab the center lines, pull them back a few feet. This would keep the kite from flying, and gives him as much time as he needs to juggle the bar. The mistake I made when thinking about this first would be the push one side of the bar up to unloop the center line, then roll the bar and clear it - but that could easily send the kite looping. Puling the centerlines down instead would prevent that. Agree?

After reading that forum more, I agree it looks like the thing to do is recognize that if you start to get yanked, the primary QR isn't going to douse the kite since it's tangled. So... since the rocks are right below you, you need to remove the secondary QR, so when shit does hit the fan you can eject from the kite completely. Then once you've recognized that's where you stand, you can start fiddling with the bar. That's a tough call to make though, willfully letting the kite float away. It would be hard to do that and not be kicking yourself for making the call for a long time afterward. But I guess it would be better than what happened.

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