I had a very small piece of algae jam up a bridle and stop a pulley sliding during a drift launch - causing the kite to loop. That green summer algae bloom happens to grip kite line like Velcro.edt wrote:nice video but I would not use this technique at any of my launches. There is a very thick layer of algae from shore out to about 1 line length at every location where a drift launch is useful. If you did it this way where I kite you would literally have 100 pounds of seaweed on your lines. I have seen kiters need 2 or 3 people to lift the lines because they were so heavy with algae when they dragged the lines close to shore without wrapping them. Also because we use a drift launch where you start with the bar & lines wrapped, nobody actually hooks into the kite while the kite drifts downwind way too dangerous. We only hook in after the kite has drifted all the way downwind.
This is that drift position you are describing. There is a risk of the lines tangling or snagging something in the water.Hugh2 wrote:We regularly drift launch at our lake. Instead of drifting straight downwind, we don't put water on the LE, but rather bias the kite to one side as we let it go (the previous poster achieves the same goal by holding one center line in hand to bias the drift as the kite goes out). The kite then drifts off at about 30 degrees from straight downwind. This is also safer, since while part of the kite is catching the wind, part is being blown down into the water (no tumbling risk). If one is careful with the lines, one can then also launch the kite to the biased side, allowing really tricky drift launches where you can only launch to one side.
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