BayAreaKiteboarding.com

Yesterday I had my first real encounter with a new kiter that was in relatively serious trouble. I say relatively because to the reader it sounds mild, but in the moment, when real panic sets in, the severity of the situation is increased exponentially.

The kiter was body dragging and ended up with a downed kite and unrecoverable tangled lines. the lines were also wrapped around their legs and the kiter had decided to roll the lines up by wrapping around the bar, not end over end, and kite was not completely flagged. After a few attempts to get the kiter to their kite I decided best thing was to release the kite completely. The kiter did not know the terminology of "flaggin" safety release" or some other very basic steps in self rescue. So everything needed to be explained while the kiters head was barely staying above water. Eventually the kite was able to be released and i dragged the kiter in land and the kite was recovered later.


The point of this post is to hopefully get new kiters to read this forum and absorb the wisdom of the many seasoned kiters around the bay. Normally the situations that occur are related to safety of others but in this situation the safety of the kiter was in harms way.

Some things to point out that went wrong:


1)never wrap lines unless the kite is completely flagged. On cabrinhas and some other 4 line kites this means your leash HAS to be attached to the flagging ring, not easily reachable if it is not put there before hand. Unfortunately most don't know what this is or means. Flagging the kite means that the only thing attaching you to the kite is your leash and the kite is laid out flat such that it will not generate any power. Some kites like the Slingshots dont flag but still hold the kite on 1 line. 5 line kites will also not flag but hold the kite in a depowered state. KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS AND HOW TO USE IT BEFORE GOING OUT.

2)When your kite is ont he water and you are trying to figure things out, try using the steering lines to drag the kite towards shore so you are not being pulled out to sea as you figure out what to do.

3)Anytime you are in the water and release your safety, be VERY aware of where those lines are. It is difficult when you cant touch your feet to teh bottom and are being towed at an angle where you cant see things. Know your setup really well-BLIND. You shouldnt have to look to release your kite.

4)safety knives are there for a reason. If you get tangled and cant release and your kite is in a situation where it may power up at any time. You might consider making the cut BEFORE things get ugly. This is very unlikely but can happen. $200 lines or even a missing kite is a lot less expensive than a missing finger or broken body part.

5)Board leashes should be taken off the board before your feet walk on shore. The board will hit the wet sand and act as an anchor making it very hard to walk or maneuver the kite. It will also guarantee a faceplant if you get yanked.

6)When coming into land, ALWAYS do it downwind of any people or obstacles. For some reason beginners love finding that gap right in between the kids in the water and trying to self land in the 20' area. ??? why, there is normally tons of room downwind and if you dont successfully land your kite, which you most likely will not, no one gets hurt or angry.

7)Never fly your kite directly over head. Always try and keep your kite a little to one side. You do this so if the kite stalls, it wont hindenburg as easily. Hindenburging is when the kite falls leading edge forward and stalls all the way to the water/land. This generally always means a tangled kite. When flying the kite to the side, it can be recovered by steering the kite in the direction it is falling and using that speed to recover flight.

8)Anytime you see your kite stalling, or flying backwards into the wind window, sheet out-push bar forward. Many beginners have a tendency to hold on for dear life and end up stalling only because there is not enough wind to keep the kite aloft. If you have a very light bar pressure kite this is harder, you might want to try and depowering the kite a few inches worth to keep the kite from doing this. this same theory is applicable to launching. When someone is holding your kite up ready to launch you, make sure you dont sheet all the way in. This makes the kite want to stall backwards and not move forward. Only pull the bar in enough to maintain steering control.

9) It is the kiters responsibility to move in the right position before giving the "thumbs up" to launch. Look at your kite, is it luffing? This almost always means you are too far downwind. Adjust yourself slowly upwind until the kite just stops luffing.



Please add any input that you think would benefit beginner kiters reading this.

Just a follow up on yuri's comments. The person pulled in just took lessons a 2 weeks ago. This was their 2nd time in the water alone. they were trained properly on how to do the self rescue but just got frustrated. the person came up to the shack and took us through what happened. Apparently the situation started out with a crash but she was calm. she wrapped the flagged line around the bar (to keep the kite flagged) but then proceded to wrap all the lines around the bar and not the line winders, the realized shortly after but it was already tangled. I think the main issue was frustration. the person was being dragged away from shore, and just didnt have the confidence to realize what was happening. We talked about what to do if it happens again, and i think that will help. the person was very receptive to advise as all beginners SHOULD be. We also pointed them to this forum, so she can read about other commmon beginner issues.

One more tip regarding board leashes. DO NOT LAUNCH YOUR KITE WITH THE BOARD LEASH ATTACHED. If you get yanked that board with kill or seriously injure you or someone else. If you need help attaching the board leash, ask whoever is launching your kite, if they would hook up the leash for you.

I intentioanlly did not put a name or gender or school in my post as it is not aimed at that. Doesn't matter who, just matters that we learn from others.

windhorny wrote:9) It is the kiters responsibility to move in the right position before giving the "thumbs up" to launch. Look at your kite, is it luffing? This almost always means you are too far downwind. Adjust yourself slowly upwind until the kite just stops luffing.

Hear, hear! As your launcher rotates your kite up, take 1 or more steps back to take up the slack in your lines and fill your kite. It ain't the launcher's job to prop up a leading edge that is flopping over backwards. (yes, the launcher can move away from you, but at many launches there's gonna be an obstacle to that like other kites underfoot, and besides, you're the one with the mobility)

10. If you want to land your kite, drop your board. If things go wrong how the hell are you going to pull your QR with a board in hand? This also frees up a hand so you can make the signal, which lets us know you want someone to catch your kite. If you're just standing there with board in hand, you look like one of the many people pausing as they walk back upwind (Alameda). Seriously, only about 1 in 5 of the people I see standing around with a board in hand actually are looking to land their kite.

Sorry the intention of my post was not to point blame, or expose the person. I have gone through and edited out the gender from the post. I was mearly trying to explane the full situation as it was told to me, so that others can grasp the full scenerio.

i think the real issue here is that the majority of students who have taken lessons are still not ready to just go out and launch by themselves.

no offense to the schools, but every friend of mine that has learned to kite (through a school) has needed a lot of help once they get to the beach that first time.

where do i pump up my kite? what do i do if i can't relaunch? where do I launch my kite? how do i make sure not to get in everyone's way? where do I come in after body dragging?

they always have tons of questions, all of which are location specific and none of which are answered by the school that taught them in hawaii, DR, brazil etc.

I talked with Rebecca from Boardsports and we both agreed it might be time for a group pow wow again.

Anyone welcome and encouraged to come speak up. The primary goal is to bring people together and let people feel like they are part of the proccess rather than the silent victims.

Date to be determined but BBQ and gossip always mix well on a weekend.

This is good learning information, thanks for all the info, I'll put it together and put it in an article for the front end.

As a reminder, all users have the power to write an article which is indexed and categorized, such as Learning/Schools here:

https://www.bayareakiteboarding.com/ind ... &Itemid=37

This is a great feature of the site, and the purpose is to make all the info easily found. In the forum, the message and info won't stay fresh and will eventually drop down.

Let's make all the learning and educational info there and easily found!

windhorny wrote: 1)never wrap lines unless the kite is completely flagged. On cabrinhas and some other 4 line kites this means your leash HAS to be attached to the flagging ring, not easily reachable if it is not put there before hand. Unfortunately most don't know what this is or means. Flagging the kite means that the only thing attaching you to the kite is your leash and the kite is laid out flat such that it will not generate any power. Some kites like the Slingshots dont flag but still hold the kite on 1 line. 5 line kites will also not flag but hold the kite in a depowered state. KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS AND HOW TO USE IT BEFORE GOING OUT.

Cabrinha nitpick here, but on flagging cabrinhas, in my experience (2008 powerdrive 1:1 bar) it is better to flag it via the main line through the bar (where your leash already is attached), and when it is on the water straight downwind unhook and start winding a steering line until you have a wingtip pointed your way, then start wrapping all four lines. Leashing to the flagging ring works for flagging the kite, but unless you've put an aftermarket stopper on the steering line you risk having the bar go way out of reach down to the kite. The cab manual does not mention rigging up with the leash attached to the flagging ring. I've done a few for-real self-rescues wrapping after flagging via the center line, only part that's hard is the effort required to get the first 4 turns of steering line wound around the bar. Using the bar for leverage fishing-pole style helps.

If any cab riders want to tell me UR Doin it WRONG, please educate me.

I hugely endorse the KNOW WHAT THIS (self-rescuing) MEANS AND HOW TO USE IT BEFORE GOING OUT. Anyone learning at Alameda who doesn't take advantage of the opportunity to dry (wet?) run a self rescue is very likely to wrap their kite origami-style around something hard when they start going to other launches. Expensive way to learn. At 3rd my first two questions to newbie kiters are "Can you stay upwind? Have you done a for-real self-rescue yet?"

Very good post Yuri.. :)