Crissy field incident - June 12

[barrettcook]

TL;DR: emergency crews were called. I'm fine. I also feel like I followed the right procedures. Hoping others can learn from my experience.


Today I had an incident at Crissy. I'm fine, and only ended up losing my bar, but there were several emergency crews called on scene. Just wanted to post this in case anyone was wondering what happened.

I had a great session, but as I was coming in just past Anita rock my kite started falling until it ended up completely back-stalling. I was able to hot launch it to the point where it flipped back over, but by this point I was nearing the end of the beach. I decided that throwing my safety and self-rescuing would be the easiest way in.

After throwing the safety, my kite didn't flag out. It was stuck pulling me slightly off shore. By the time I neared last-chance beach I decided to throw my second safety and release myself from the kite, since I was unable to self rescue toward it.

Once I swam in, I immediately ran to the St Francis Yacht Club and asked someone to call the coast guard to let them know I was ok, since I knew my kite was floating around in the water. He awkwardly refused, so I tried to find the dock manager, but the office (shipping container) was vacant.

At that point, someone was pulling in with their boat so I explained the situation and asked if they'd be willing to help me retrieve my kite. We went out, got the kite and came back in to the marina.

As we were pulling in, someone was walking along the jetty with my surfboard while talking on the phone. I signaled that it was my board, but by that point emergency crews were already on the scene. I immediately ran to one of the ambulances, explained my situation and they were able to relay that I was okay.

Sorry for the scare -- I'm obviously not trying to get any of our spots closed down. Hopefully my story is useful for anyone else who might find themselves in a similar situation.

[Tony Soprano]

Hind sight is wonderfull.

I suggest that you could have pulled in just one front line regardless of the saftey. Then wrapped all the lines up with all the tension on that one shorter frontline.


Also please investigate and learn your kites saftey, function, mechanism and design someware other than Crissy.

Please tell us the brand and model of kite and bar.

The Bubble at crissy on the inside requires a lot of local knowledge, my best advice is to have your kite very depowered so it will not stall into the water including grabbing your front lines to depower even more tempoarally to get through a lull in the wind.

Please reread the comprehesive four page crissy safety guide with map, it can be found on this website.

[Tony Soprano]

The most current addiction of the Crissy Field safety Sailing Guide is here.


https://www.scribd.com/doc/263864003/Cr ... ete-Maps-2

[tgautier]

Freudian slip there. Hehe. :).

Hello. My name is ***. I'm a kiteboarding addict. ;-)

[Loscocco]

I saw the whole thing unfold and while i was not actually the one with the kite down it i can fully say much. I think fully releasing the kite was a mistake.. Once a kite goes down and its not relaunchable the first thing to do (esp on a offshore wind like it was) is to pull in on ONE line and fully depower the kite.
You were only about 200 feet from the shore (by H-Beam and STFYC) and it was easily swimmable with gear. The mistake was to not flag the kite out there and swim or self rescue in. Or at least pull the steering line to aim the kite more toward shore rather than away from it.
The kite was pulling still a little but was not death looping at all or anything serious like that.

Other than that i think the rider did everything right in the situation that i probably would have done including notifying the response team promptly that he was ok.

Welcome to crissy... it def requires paying your dues and is the double black diamond of kiting around here.

[Aloha]

I have almost 100% been there before.

Was on RRD Addiction high aspect kite ... got caught on a lull inside and the kite flopped and inverted around the center lines...

Tried blowing safety but it just sort of stayed downwind (offshore) pulling me out as I tried to swim perpendicular to get in before the lines wrapped around that little marker before the yacht club beach.

It's funny because I remember thinking the same thing: "I am so close that if I stop making progress I am just going to ditch the kite because it's the only thing that is keeping me from getting in"

Definitely the least fun experience of my 2014 season.

Good to know you're okay and that St. Francis still acts like a yacht club!

[etxxz]

lighten up soprano.

glad you got your kite back barrett. how'd you loose the bar then?

[Tony Soprano]

No, nothing personal directed towards the original poster and I am glad he started the discussion.

I see nothing to lighten up about.

Maybe this will prevent someone else from getting in trouble.

How many rescues per person is too many?

I finally gave the safety handout in person to a fellow whom was rescued by the
Fire Department Jet ski, Red/White Ferry, and the Coast Guard all in a four week period. He is now back at Alameda perfecting his skills.

[keithdkd]

Thanks for the story OP. This thread is a good excuse to share the coast guard numbers, for anyone that doesn't have them in your phone yet:

Coast Guard Emergency: 415-556-2103
Coast Guard Non-emergency: 415-399-3530

If you ditch your gear, call them as soon as you can. Otherwise, they'll get calls about a kite with no kiter, and they'll waste time and money sending someone to look for your body.

[Captain John]

I think many people are apprehensive about handling their kite lines while in the water with an active kite. I see the reason when the kite is really powered up but under normal powered conditions, you can start pulling the line that is left under tension after the first release is triggered and put the kite in the same position on the water as what hitting the quick release will achieve. Everyone should know what line this is on their kite/bar kit so if there is some problem with the quick release, you can bypass it and start pulling the proper line instead.

If you are close to shore and don't expect a boat rescue, there is no need to wrap the lines around the bar, just continue going up the line all the way to the kite where you can sit on it and bend it to catch a rescue breeze, or swim it in. Wrapping up lines takes time away from your effort to get back to shore.

If you're worried about line tangles, don't disconnect your safety line or any line from the kite and bar. Put the safety line back in place and work to separate the kite from the bar, fixing the tangles in between the bar and kite. Detaching lines will add to the tangles.