Re: (How not to?) Deal with 40 kt.+ sudden winds
Posted: Wed May 08, 2019 3:49 pm
He spends a lot of time on, near and approaching land, aside from the ease of shooting, talking about keeping the kite flying come whatever. That is wrong based on many accidents over the last 20 years. Just pull the QR's as soon as you can safely do it BEFORE the strong winds come and don't try to manage through high gusts on land. The winds can rise so very fast that you can be easily yarded and/or lofted and slammed to hard impact before you have any idea just how severe the winds will go. Kiting can be complicated, individual circumstances often govern, but to planning to hang on regardless as a first step is wrong very special circumstances aside. With any kite you should be asking yourself, "what if" as surroundings and conditions change, trying to anticipate issues before they arise.
I long believed kiters should have reasonable watermanship skills for the conditions they ride in. If you intentionally kite in offshore winds and/or near land boundaries or islands you have a special set of circumstances you have to deal with and plan for. I have kited in such areas but I am particularly cautious about being nailed by violent weather changes. For my part I would much rather deal with a rip current and/or wave break than a major lofting. Managing one is far more straight forward than the other although it is potentially a lot tougher if you are drifting away from land or an island. If you choose to ride in such an area and with a foil, your list of potential issues goes up substantially. You should be wearing exposure clothing suitable for some time in the water in cooler conditions and reasonable flotation. To assume you will always be on plane and out of the water isn't realistic. Water is warmer in my area than in temperate areas and Europe but we may have more frequent, powerful thunderstorm/squalls typically. Although in recent years Europe may be catching up with more frequent violent weather. If your conditions offshore don't allow "immediate complete depowering of the kite, hitting the QR, flagging the kite," you need to stay AWARE of that and plan accordingly. It is a rare thing in my experience with some isolated exceptions throughout Florida, the Caribbean and some temperate venues.
If you are flying a foil, you know things work very differently in many respects from LEI kites which are still the primary kites in use worldwide. In choosing to fly foils and training with them you need to be sensitive to what they can and can't do and modified procedures and safety considerations that go with them. I started with open intake RAMs in the late 1990's and some early RAMs with intake valves but readily sinkable kites shortly after. If they hit the water you were going to have to deal with a mess but you knew that and how to deal with it. You should try to anticipate foil-specific issues as you monitor changing conditions as well as you are able. The video doesn't mention foils one way or the other.
I long believed kiters should have reasonable watermanship skills for the conditions they ride in. If you intentionally kite in offshore winds and/or near land boundaries or islands you have a special set of circumstances you have to deal with and plan for. I have kited in such areas but I am particularly cautious about being nailed by violent weather changes. For my part I would much rather deal with a rip current and/or wave break than a major lofting. Managing one is far more straight forward than the other although it is potentially a lot tougher if you are drifting away from land or an island. If you choose to ride in such an area and with a foil, your list of potential issues goes up substantially. You should be wearing exposure clothing suitable for some time in the water in cooler conditions and reasonable flotation. To assume you will always be on plane and out of the water isn't realistic. Water is warmer in my area than in temperate areas and Europe but we may have more frequent, powerful thunderstorm/squalls typically. Although in recent years Europe may be catching up with more frequent violent weather. If your conditions offshore don't allow "immediate complete depowering of the kite, hitting the QR, flagging the kite," you need to stay AWARE of that and plan accordingly. It is a rare thing in my experience with some isolated exceptions throughout Florida, the Caribbean and some temperate venues.
If you are flying a foil, you know things work very differently in many respects from LEI kites which are still the primary kites in use worldwide. In choosing to fly foils and training with them you need to be sensitive to what they can and can't do and modified procedures and safety considerations that go with them. I started with open intake RAMs in the late 1990's and some early RAMs with intake valves but readily sinkable kites shortly after. If they hit the water you were going to have to deal with a mess but you knew that and how to deal with it. You should try to anticipate foil-specific issues as you monitor changing conditions as well as you are able. The video doesn't mention foils one way or the other.