BayAreaKiteboarding.com

Nukin winds at 3rd yesterday! I got there early and put up my 10M right away which was good for about two hours and then the winds really started cranking! By 4:30 the winds were blowing in the 30's and there were only 1 or 2 kiters out on the water. Windsurfers were all coming in to rig their smallest sail!

On a sad note, a kiter was injured out on the water and had to be taken away in an ambulance. I am not sure of the extent of his injuries, but someone said he might have broken ribs. I saw the guy go out from the upper launch. He was on a 12M kite and it took two big guys to hold him down just to bring him to the water. Shortly thereafter, I saw him get lofted at least 20ft and then slammed against the water and then again another 20ft, slam. After the second slam he somehow completely got disconnected from his kite. At this point he was probably about 1/4 mile from the shore. Fortunately, another kiter went to check on him and ended up towing him back to shore. When he got back to the parking lot, he looked very shaken up. I assume that the injury was caused by either the impact from hitting the water or from his harness. I hope this guy is ok.

Was pretty good at the coast, too. At Waddell or Scotts Creek almost everybody was riding a 6 sqm kite.

Jeez Al,

That sounds rough for that guy. I've had some bad wiipeouts where you have no control of the kite, you don't know what it's doing, you don't know up from down, you're just blindly pulling on one side of the bar, which is usually the wrong side of the bar which slams you even harder right before crashing the kite hard. Then maybe it relaucnhes and does it again.
I can see how some situations can get out of hand. I hope to avoid those and trust that I'll be able to activate my shackle and/or quick release.

Hope he wasn't hurt too bad. He was conscious anyway, that's good.

Ollie