Fixing inversion on the water... smart or stupid?

[The111]

Today I managed to get my RPM (4 line) inverted. I was in deep water pretty far from the beach, and rather than do a time consuming self rescue, I gambled and climbed through the lines above the spinner and successfully removed the inversion. Thoughts:

1) This would be much more difficult (or impossible) on a lineset where the "split" of the centerlines started further away. I was using the Slingshot Compstick bar and the split was within reach so I grabbed it and climbed through above it. On my other Slingshot Keychain bar, the split happens far out of reach, I think.

2) Climbing through the lines seemed kind of stupid, like I might be risking some kind of tangle/decapitation. But like I said, I gambled and it worked out.

What are people's opinion of this?

[Ivel]

I fly Torches and Fuels 5line and the bar I have made has all 5 branch from the bar. When I drop the kite and it tumbles it's easy enough to park it with a wingtip on the water and then put my bar through the front lines until it is untangled. This does require unhooking from the harness and leash. I have never attempted going through the lines on purpose though. It has happened accidentally when i crashed a jump and I ended up with a red line around my waist a thick as a finger for about two weeks.
Not sure how well it works on Bow/SLEs though, when I had a shockwave and tried to fix it I only ended up making the problem worse.

[j1finnn1]

I don't know. Unless I'm missing something, under normal circumstances if you roll a 4 line and you can get it re launched, just get back to the beach and redo everything.

[tautologies]

well I certainly would not go through myself..there are way way too many things that can go wrong, and lines that can get attached to harness parts etc......but pull in on both center lines and put the bar through is ok, if you are willing to take that chance. Usually though, and a 4 line kite, just get the kite in the air, get back to the beach, and put the bar through there...

[BWD]

I would pull in some rope to depower (if possible), unhook from CL and pass th bar through the lines.
I would not climb through the lines (human sushi?).
Then I would clip in to CL again and making sure the leash was in a good position with some slack, unhook the leash and unwind it from the bar, then reconnect it.
If this takes more than a second or two, make sure you have a good grip on the safety line (or be ready to grab an OSH) in case the kite starts pulling, you wouldn't want to let it go...

[kiteboardbum]

just to second what everyone else is saying, the safest option is to relaunch your kite with the lines crossed, ride directly back to the beach and fix it there. the kite will fly with lines crossed...not good for the lines to do this for a long time, but fine for a quick ride back to the beach. if you want to fix it in the water, unhook your leash, pass your bar (not yourself) through the center of the lines, and then re-hook up your leash. Its easiest to do this if you set your kite on its wingtip on the water at the edge of the wind window.

[magic%20Ed]

Last year I did this myself.


Big mistake!

The only good thing was that I realized that 10 years experience does not mean that you are always in control...

[WRX_KITE]

I would pull in some rope to depower (if possible), unhook from CL and pass th bar through the lines.
I would not climb through the lines (human sushi?).
Then I would clip in to CL again and making sure the leash was in a good position with some slack, unhook the leash and unwind it from the bar, then reconnect it.
If this takes more than a second or two, make sure you have a good grip on the safety line (or be ready to grab an OSH) in case the kite starts pulling, you wouldn't want to let it go...

I agree, I have done this method a couple times, but I wouldn't consider climbing through.

[LanBro]

This happened to me last week. I tried my first unhooked railey...and needless to say it didn't work. My leash was hooked to a center flag-out line...When i got back to the bar the right outside line was now wrapped around my 2 center lines (under). I was a little nervous but I relaunched it and slowly came back in with the bar fully sheeted out so the rear lines were slack and not pulling on the fronts.

The question I have is, if I wanted to fix it out on the water how should I have passed the bar?
The right outside line was now under the 2 center lines? If looking at my bar..the lines were in the following order...I had the left outside line straight (no problem there) then my right outside line then my 2 center lines..

thanks

[The111]

I would pull in some rope to depower (if possible), unhook from CL and pass th bar through the lines.
I would not climb through the lines (human sushi?).
Then I would clip in to CL again and making sure the leash was in a good position with some slack, unhook the leash and unwind it from the bar, then reconnect it.

I like this idea, more than I like the idea of disconnecting leash first and risking losing the entire kite if I drop the bar while passing it. Or I could even re-route my leash ahead of time, so that when I finished passing the bar, it would be routed correctly.

Thanks for the feedback all... guess I will not be climbing through any more even if I got away with it once.