"Tinkerers",
Here is a project in need of criticism and improvement. Call it a "line grabber" or sacrificial "5th. finger". It is meant to be used for:
1. Feeding out the 5th. line, while doing a shallow-water-controled-drift-launch. (more on that later)
2. Working your way up one line, while doing a self-rescue.
3. Grabbing a line, while running up to your beach-dumped-kite, when the kite gets unexpectledly gusted.
Why bother? Ask any of the kiters who have had pieces of their body amputated by kite line. A line looped around your finger, has the potential of peeling off the skin like the finger of a glove. A classic Emergency Room injury is the case of the victim's big ring snagging on the loose chrome trim of a moving car. All that's left is the bone and ligament. A victim gets to spend the next 6 months with his hand sewn to his hip while the skin grafts to the finger. I HATE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS!
I based this project on the principle of the "Jumar Climber", which allows rock climbers to ratchet their way up a rope, by first sliding the clamping device up the rope and then activating the clamp....then pulling up the second "climber" and clamping that so that you can straignten your leg and move your body and the first clamping device higher up....etc.
"Jumar: General term derived from the French-made Jumar Ascender but now applied generically to include all rope-ascending devices, including Petzl, Clog, Gibb etc. Any of these ascenders uses a pivoting cam which deploys against the rope, enabling the device to move up but not down"
I made this "poor-mans" Jumar Ascender from PVC. The pictures show how, with 2 windings of the kiteline, you can allow the line to slip, and with a 90 degree movement of your hand, you can brake the line. Grasping (but not wrapping) the line below the device allows you to (hopefully) safely feed out the line, and with a flick of the wrist, you can stop the line from feeding out. The handle surrounds and protects your hand from the line.
The standards I used were:
1. The device must be able to be employed quickly and by ONE HAND only, leaving the other hand free to multitask.
2. Must not harm the line.
3. Must be able to exert variable resistance to the line.
4. Must float.
5. Simple to understand.
6. Cheap and easy to make.
7. Small enough to be stored under the board handle.
Another idea, I considered and rejected was that of a kevlar bracelet, you could wear and pull over your hand for protection when you needed to grab a line.
I think something is needed for safely grabbing lines, and I reject advice like....."Dude, you're just making it too complicated. I just run up the line, and grab the kite. ....do it all the time....no problems."
What do you think? Could you incorporate a kite knife in the design? Make it small and pretty, and slip it into a pocket on the top of a footstrap?