Postby pmaggie » Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:05 am
You will for sure pardon my poor english since this will be a long post. I was thinking yesterday night about the accident. Apparently, every of us here in front of our pc screen is cautious and reasonable. The video of the squall coming speaks for itself, it's a totally no go situation. It's so easy to say "only a fool etc." and it is the real real real truth. There was no need to be a genius nor a meteo expert to understand it was so dangerous to launch a kite. But. But. I put myself on the crime scene. I'm on the beach, I'm not alone. The wind is picking up, I really WANT to kite (the poor guy was French, so for sure he went to Lo Stagnone exactly for this reason, he was not a local who can wait the next windy day). I think "tomorrow I'm leaving". Also, some other guys are pumping. The atmosphere is euphoric, "il vento" (the wind), someone says "it will last half an hour, we better go immediately". I started windsurfing in 1982 and I witnessed an infinite number of situation like this one. Here on the lake we call this type of weather "ricaduta", that means "relapse". Back to the scene: two, three, ten are going in the water. Am I staying on the beach and just watch? The right answer is "yes, you stupid! Can't you see a squall is coming?". But I'm not sure my answer would have been the right one. I think that sometimes the situation overwhelm the reason, making an otherwise clever man like a child. It's the classic adrenaline, you're urged, you're forced to kite, there's something in you're mind that pushes you to go out, it's like there's no tomorrow. This is, I think, the same pulsion that pushes a kiter to drive for hours, to wait for nothing, to loose time and money just for that cursed hour of kiteboarding. It's stupid, I know, but it is what a lot of us really feel.
This accident and all the other accidents must be a severe lesson. May a squall come while I'm on the beach, I hope I will remember how you can loose your life for half an hour of kiting. But I frankly don't feel comfortable if I declare "in his shoes, I'm sure I would have remained on the beach". I'm so sorry that these poor guys lost their life doing what they loved and I'm so sorry to think that it could have happened also to me it the same exact situation. We all, as kiters, must honor these lost lives and our sport committing ourselves to always think "safety first". That is, I repeat, not so obvious as it could appear.