Self-Rescue: The big problem with Ram airs

[K-Roy]

Just a word to those riding the inflatables: always pinch your struts off! It does no good to have a kite that can self rescue if you pop a valve and the entire kite turns into a laundry bag. I think maybe 90% of the kiters out there never in their life pinched a strut off. Too much effort? I dunno. Anyway if you ride an inflato and never pinch your struts you are in the exactly the same position as a foil kiter if your bladder pops. Swimming back to the launch with a laundry bag sucks. Good exercise though. Foil kites are too good to give up, there's always the temptation to go away from shore too far. Especially when you are on the foil + foil combo that thing has legs! But when the wind dies I mean really dies goes down to zero, and you are 2 miles from shore that's going to be a long embarrassing swim back. Never kite further away from shore than you can swim back. I know it's tempting to go out far because hydroil + foil kite can ride in the lightest puff but you want to make sure not to get more than a mile or so out, however far you feel comfortable you can swim back if you have to.

Everyone should own at least 1 foil kite and at least 1 hydrofoil. If just to understand what it's all about.

+1
I try to tell my friends on the beach to pinch at least one strut, nobody cares, they look at me like I was from Mars.
Including my Son, untill he tomahawked his kite in an unhooked trick and it deflated completely.
He was about 200m from shore and still wasn't pretty
by the time he got it back on land. I don't need to tell him anymore to close at least one valve...

[EricSanders]

Just a word to those riding the inflatables: always pinch your struts off! It does no good to have a kite that can self rescue if you pop a valve and the entire kite turns into a laundry bag. I think maybe 90% of the kiters out there never in their life pinched a strut off. Too much effort? I dunno. Anyway if you ride an inflato and never pinch your struts you are in the exactly the same position as a foil kiter if your bladder pops. Swimming back to the launch with a laundry bag sucks. Good exercise though. Foil kites are too good to give up, there's always the temptation to go away from shore too far. Especially when you are on the foil + foil combo that thing has legs! But when the wind dies I mean really dies goes down to zero, and you are 2 miles from shore that's going to be a long embarrassing swim back. Never kite further away from shore than you can swim back. I know it's tempting to go out far because hydroil + foil kite can ride in the lightest puff but you want to make sure not to get more than a mile or so out, however far you feel comfortable you can swim back if you have to.

Everyone should own at least 1 foil kite and at least 1 hydrofoil. If just to understand what it's all about.

Yep, learned my lesson a couple of years ago at South Haven with my 13.5. I had dropped the kite and a wave tumbled it. One of my lines got caught around the valve plug. When I relaunched, it popped the plug and I ended up with a big wet bag .

[plummet]

Simply a better pilot I'd have thought. No reason you couldn't have done that with a foil kite.

There is one advantage. That's the lei's ability to be snapped back after completely slack lining it. In the dunes going down slope down wind sometimes you need to run straight at the kite for a bit. Then before the kite hits the deck all you need to do is retention the top steering line and boom back in business. Do that same thing on a foil and you have a 50/50 chance it will ball up and not be recoverable.

Sounds like fun. But any sand dunes here go into people's gardens or are protected areas. We don't get to play in any.

As a buggier set yourself a bucket list item to spend a week buggying sand dunes. It is by far and away the most fun thing you can do in a kite buggy.

In fact is surpasses 95% of kitesurfing also for fun factor.

3 weeks time I will be back in the dunes for the yearly "moosemeet" the oldest traction kiting event in the world!... ahhhh sand dunes as far as the eye can see.

[Bille]

...
That said, Hold the race on the flat hard sand and I have no chance on an lei against a high aspect foil. In that instance I have to fire up the chrono. Then its game on!.

Wish i had the money to ship your ass & land buggy to Ivanpah ; we could
race and the looser could buy the cold beer, (wouldn't care WHO won) id
be a Blast !!!

@ PMU
Remember when you flew hang gliders ? The day you wrote this thread ; i was
8,000-ft in the air with my rigid-wing, and having a hell of a Good time !!!
Maybe for your mental health sake ; you should consider going back up, in the air ?

Bille

[socommk23]

...
That said, Hold the race on the flat hard sand and I have no chance on an lei against a high aspect foil. In that instance I have to fire up the chrono. Then its game on!.

Wish i had the money to ship your ass & land buggy to Ivanpah ; we could
race and the looser could buy the cold beer, (wouldn't care WHO won) id
be a Blast !!!

@ PMU
Remember when you flew hang gliders ? The day you wrote this thread ; i was
8,000-ft in the air with my rigid-wing, and having a hell of a Good time !!!
Maybe for your mental health sake ; you should consider going back up, in the air ?

Bille

I'd love to try ivanpah just for the winds. The ground isn't very kind to a kite as sand is. One of our club members moved to America a while ago but still buggies on the salt flats.

[plummet]

...
That said, Hold the race on the flat hard sand and I have no chance on an lei against a high aspect foil. In that instance I have to fire up the chrono. Then its game on!.

Wish i had the money to ship your ass & land buggy to Ivanpah ; we could
race and the looser could buy the cold beer, (wouldn't care WHO won) id
be a Blast !!!

@ PMU
Remember when you flew hang gliders ? The day you wrote this thread ; i was
8,000-ft in the air with my rigid-wing, and having a hell of a Good time !!!
Maybe for your mental health sake ; you should consider going back up, in the air ?

Bille

Ivanpah is on my bucket list!!!!!

You need to ship your own arse to NZ so we can ride some dunes together. Oh there some super sweet ridge souring to be done in you pg too......