Well said, pmaggie. You are right. No matter how experienced, anyone of us can have a lapse in judgment. Possibly fatal. (And your English is very good....eloquent. )pmaggie wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:05 amYou 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.
This is a very good explanation of a situation I know all too well, when stoke overtakes reason, the kite brain kicks in, and dumb things happen. I have had my share of these, and sometimes these kitemares (and boatmares, snowboardmares, surfmares, etc) wake me up in the night, thinking about how close disaster was and how not worth it that session was in retrospect. I try to learn from my mistakes, still chasing the stoke, but making better choices, not dance so close to that edge. When we see this kind of thing brewing with friends and visitors, I think we have an obligation to try and help them avoid disaster ... even if it makes you the local safety kook and wet blanket. Another tragic loss ... my thoughts are with this fellow wind chaser's family and friends.pmaggie wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:05 amYou 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.
In climbing this is called "summit fever" and though widely recognized it continues to claim lives.pmaggie wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 9:05 amI 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.
Slappysan wrote: ↑Fri Sep 21, 2018 11:03 pmThe thing about squalls is that the most dangerous place to be when they hit is near land so getting off the water when you see one approaching can be more dangerous than just going out to open water with nothing downwind.
It wasn't a squall but one time when I was out on my 10m and the winds picked up to 35-40 knots instead of trying to land I opted to sit in shallow water with nothing downwind of me for over 10 minutes until the wind dipped back down to 30 knots and I could safely land.
Users browsing this forum: Aleza, bgkiter, BillyGoatGruff, Bing [Bot], Brent NKB, ChielSter, Chriz76, DanielorDani, elrizo, evan, fly62, FunOnTheWater, Gonzavala, Google [Bot], ham-er, i_love_storm, jannik, nixmatters, Pepijn, universalflush, vladi elthve, Yahoo [Bot] and 453 guests