Toby wrote: ↑Sun Mar 03, 2019 8:37 am
I don’t understand why you refused the help of the boats? Loosing energy goes incredible fast!!!
Plus: never get into a situation like that! This can be deadly within minutes!
I don't see how this could be deadly at all, it was a warm night, probably 22 degree air and 18 degree water. I was wearing a 5/3 wetsuit and a very buoyant vest and had a very buoyant surfboard.
Honestly I was never really worried about any harm, at any point I could simply let my kite go and paddle to shore in about 15 minutes. Sure it would suck to have to let the kite go but that was the only real risk.
Also keep in mind that while I call this off shore wind, I'm still in a big bay so I'll always end up at shore in 3/4 directions, it just might be a $50 cab ride away from where I parked.
Now my reasoning for opting to swim in instead of taking the two different rescues that were offered were:
1) These boats are out there as part of the sailing club, which is very segregated from kiteboarding in the city of Vancouver. Taking a rescue from them means an added strike to kite access by the city lifeguards.
2) Kiteboarding in Vancouver isn't very well accepted, that's the reason I was so far away from shore, because we simply aren't allowed to be closer to shore by the lifeguards.
3) These guys don't know anything about kites and your kite can easily be damaged by them during the rescue. The only way I would actually do it is to fully deflate in the water.
4) I felt confident that I could swim it (in the end it was more of a challenge than I was expecting but even if I had failed it would have only meant the loss of my kite)