3rd Ave Today Was a Survival Fest

[motorcyclemark]

Landed someone on Tuesday at 3rd upper launch carrying a ton of power on a 7m. Was a tad worried when he said that he figured someone would be along eventually to land him! This made me wonder if he had no other plan for landing!? Only one other person on the water (the deflatee above), and I just happened to be watching in street clothes (didn't look like much fun out there at 3rd). On nuclear days like Tuesday, I would strongly recommend having a contingency plan not relying on someone else to land you - in order of safety IMHO in this situation at 3rd: punch out in the water, roll up lines and get in (it was low tide so you could walk in); if you're not way overpowered you can use the log at the upper launch with a hook on it (put your depowered kite at the edge of the window, hook up your safety to the log, then your chicken loop, get to the kite quickly); punch out on land (esp. since he was on a North 5th line system) with the kite depowered at the edge of the window. It could be a long wait (and a long night?! :shock: ) out there for someone to land you on those blasting wind days if you don't have a plan and/or self-landing skills!!

[troybo13]

"Never self-rescued in winds that strong"
I apparently disagree with that statement.
1. I fly a Slingshot that when I eject, it dumps to a single line to the kite that make the kite manageable in whatever. (Having not ejected a kite in a couple of years, I was certainly not practiced at this)
2. My priority was getting the kite under control. It was easy to reel in the kite on the single line. Once I got a hold of the kite I deflated it.
3. Since the bar was somewhere mid line, I corraled the lines by wrapping around the board and then when I got to the bar, I wrapped lines around the bar. Not the ideal for sure. I could have made the priority to get to the bar and start wrapping lines.
4. Now I had a kite, bar and board tied together as a package that I could get to shore with.

Next time I would probably get to the bar first and start wrapping. Regardless, because I wrapped on the board, I was able to clear the lines and get the bar back into shape for the next ride in less than 20 minutes. I have seen rat nests in lines that would take an hour after a self rescue.

The wild card that I thought might happen is if one of the other kite lines got caught on something and held, the kite would then have two lines attached and could have powered up. I think that is why I reeled the kite in first. I wanted that sucker deflated.

I had a plan B and plan C already in mind when I started plan A.
As with all experiences, there was some good lessons in this for me.
As I said before, I am open to other ideas and input. I will say that I have watched POV kite videos where things went bad and definitely learned some DON'T's from them.

Mahalos!

[jwest21]

Haha, I think you read that as:

"Never self-rescue in winds that strong"

Whereas he said:

"Never self-rescued in winds that strong"

As in he never has before had the experience of doing it.

[etxxz]

even if you are good at self landing. a 7m kite with that much wind will probably fly down the beach once you do set it down. properly. i like the hooking up to the log idea. safety. then chicken loop. never been in that situation before. sounds scary.

i was thinking of you crazy a*** while i was riding my motorcycle and felt like the wind wanted to flip me upside down... specially going over the 101-380-280 overpass holy

[troybo13]

"Haha, I think you read that as:

"Never self-rescue in winds that strong"

Whereas he said:

"Never self-rescued in winds that strong"

Yeah, I did miss read. LOL!
Thanks for catching that.

[Cali_Rider]

I have a question for Troy (and everyone else too)...

Why deflate the kite?

I guess it is different since you were close to shore and only had ~40 yards to walk, but I was always told to keep the kite inflated as long as possible. I would think it would be easier to walk with the kite flipped over (like you would on land) as opposed to having a soggy, deflated kite to drag back up to the beach?

I had to self rescue yesterday, and even when I got to shallow waters and was able to walk, I kept the kite inflated and just walked with it like I would on shore.

-Peter

also, thanks to whoever brought my board in. much appreciated.

[jwest21]

I think they are saying deflate the leading edge and roll up around the inflated struts, assuming you remembered to engage the strut clips. This makes it a manageable size and still floats.

[le noun]

i like the hooking up to the log idea. safety. then chicken loop.

When I go to 3rd in the beginning of the season, I often end up being there at least an hour before anybody else on a week day. I've been using this log for ever and it works great.
When OP this log can be slowly dragged by the kite though... So run back to your line quickly.