Leash discussion

[we]

The joke is that most people who preach about board leashed still dont wear helmets, more danger from sustaining a head injury than being hit by your board.

Get hit in the head by what? Shark? If you want to be safe, a full PFD would be the most useful. I never could figure out why someone would wear a helmet but no PFD.

[icebird]

The joke is that most people who preach about board leashed still dont wear helmets, more danger from sustaining a head injury than being hit by your board.

Get hit in the head by what? Shark? If you want to be safe, a full PFD would be the most useful. I never could figure out why someone would wear a helmet but no PFD.

I agree, it is two different issues - leashes are demonstrably dangerous and the lack of incidents recently is because most don't use them.

Helmet: if you get knocked out something bad can happen that a basic swimvest won't fix. I wear a helmet primarly to protect eardrums and because it doesn't bother me, so cheap insurance against a random stone or board.

A leash + board is a seeking missile, helmet or no helmet. Lots of miss and near miss stories.

[DocDeuce]

When I lose my board, usually in waves, I just send my kite and pop myself out of the water about 5-10ft and look down. At that point i know where it is and body drag to it.

[whabbits]

This site has some great arguments against kiteboard leashes but is also selling the GOJOE from Ocean Rodeo.

http://www.kiteboardleash.com/

[davesails7]

Get hit in the head by what? Shark? If you want to be safe, a full PFD would be the most useful. I never could figure out why someone would wear a helmet but no PFD.

The main reason for a helmet is hitting if something goes wrong on land and you hit a hard object. When you look at the statistics of how people are killed or seriously injured while kiting, it doesn't seem like a PFD would have helped many of the cases, but having a helmet would have helped a majority. At least that's what it seems like to me.

I wear both.

[foxzone]

I used to wear a helmet. I started to learn jumping tricks and hit water with speed. Helmet is adding resistance when hitting water. I had few time my neck strained because of it so I am done with helmet.
On land i use common sense while dealing with kite.
Never used a board leash. In light wind I don't have a reason to lose a board.
Otherwise you can body dragging easy, just practice it, no big deal.

[jbdc]

The joke is that most people who preach about board leashed still dont wear helmets, more danger from sustaining a head injury than being hit by your board.

Get hit in the head by what? Shark? If you want to be safe, a full PFD would be the most useful. I never could figure out why someone would wear a helmet but no PFD.

I guess you've never blown a jump and come down head first with speed? The impact of the water alone on an unprotected head can easily be enough to knock you out. Maybe you're just hard headed? ;P

Further, I don't see why anyone would wear a PFD but no helmet. PFDs aren't lifejackets; they will *NOT* roll you over if you're unconscious--even if you weren't attached to a kite.

I wear an impact vest and a helmet. Both have protected me from either having the wind knocked out of me, or getting plain knocked-out. What other people do is their own business, even if I think they're taking risks I consider unacceptable. But if one of my launches were threatened with closure because somebody (nearly) died by not using them; I'd be pretty upset, and would become an insufferable blowhard campaigning for their adoption if it would save the launch.

Nonetheless, I'd like to see helmets and impact protection mandated for competition (isn't that the case for wakeboarding and most other boardsports?). I think it would go some way to changing the poor attitude some people have relating to safety gear. It'd also be nice to see helmets in more promotional videos.

In an effort to get back on topic and to address OP's concern about board recovery: The answers are already in this thread; put your contact info on your board and use a Go-Joe. A Go-Joe may 'get in the way', but certainly not any more than a leash does; and a Go-Joe can't wrap around your control bar.

There may be instances where it is worth the risk of a leash: Nasty shorebreak, current, cold water, light wind, etc. But for the vast majority of riders in normal conditions, there's no good reason for a leash. If you're that worried about board recovery, you'll have to suffer through the 'inconvenience' of a Go-Joe.

Any schools using leashes or advocating for their use deserve to be called-out for taking shortcuts in their instruction and compromising the safety of their clients.

foxzone: What kind of helmet were you using? I've heard this complaint before, but it only seems to be a problem on helmets with a larger brim which will catch water and torque your neck. I haven't had a problem yet with my WRSI, which has only a tiny brim.

[davesails7]

I used to wear a helmet. I started to learn jumping tricks and hit water with speed. Helmet is adding resistance when hitting water. I had few time my neck strained because of it so I am done with helmet.
On land i use common sense while dealing with kite.
Never used a board leash. In light wind I don't have a reason to lose a board.
Otherwise you can body dragging easy, just practice it, no big deal.

I've never had a neck strain after 500+ sessions with a helmet, including some very strong impacts with the water on backroll kiteloops gone wrong.

The helmet does add some resistance because it has more projected surface area, but it also absorbs some of the impact. I think it absorbs a lot more than it increases, but who knows, at worst it's a wash.

My main reason for wearing it is impacts with hard objects on land. Using "common sense" is a start, but even if you do everything right, you can always break a line, get caught in a fast moving storm, get hit by a gust/updraft, or just make a stupid mistake. I know I've made a few stupid mistakes.

To each their own, if you want to wear a helmet or not. I just don't see neck strain as being a reason to not wear a helmet.

[jbdc]

To each their own, if you want to wear a helmet or not. I just don't see neck strain as being a reason to not wear a helmet.

+1

[XMitja]

I guess you've never blown a jump and come down head first with speed? The impact of the water alone on an unprotected head can easily be enough to knock you out. Maybe you're just hard headed? ;P

this is a terrible argument, imagine doing a head first dive (feet first dive might hurt even more though) from the 10m platform, would you really want to use a helmet? don't you think it's strange that olympic divers don't use helmets?

the higher you fall from and the more speed you have, the more a helmet is going to hurt you

you can of course prove me wrong, just go to a pool and do a dive off the 10m platform with a helmet, just make sure to film it too for our amusement