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After the tragedy in Lanzarote 2 weeks ago, last weekend there were two other accidents in the Canary Islands. One in Gran Canaria and one in Fuerteventura. The boy from Gran Canaria has died, the one from Fuerteventura (Flag beach) is seriously ill.

Gran Canaria: https://www.canarias7.es/sucesos/conste ... 11-nt.html
Fuerteventura: https://www.noticiasfuerteventura.com/f ... -corralejo

That's just sad to read...RIP

Hopefully the guy in Fuerte will be ok...fingers crossed.

kn wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 10, 2021 7:22 am

After the tragedy in Lanzarote 2 weeks ago, last weekend there were two other accidents in the Canary Islands. One in Gran Canaria and one in Fuerteventura. The boy from Gran Canaria has died, the one from Fuerteventura (Flag beach) is seriously ill.

Gran Canaria: https://www.canarias7.es/sucesos/conste ... 11-nt.html
Fuerteventura: https://www.noticiasfuerteventura.com/f ... -corralejo

Before people ask here a bit more detail about both Incidences.

Fuerteventura.

This happened at Flag Beach. I saw it happen. The wind was dropping and changing directions. It had been doing this all day long. When we have conditons like this here small "wind devils" or "twisters" can form as the wind shifts fromm North to North East. This had alread happened 3 times that day. Almost everyone had come back in and landed their kites. He was still standing there with his kite at 12. Then a "wind devil" came though and picked him up. He was about 6-7m high and the kite downlooped and dropped him. He sufffers broken wirsts and ribs, but is recovering well now. He got very lucky and we got lucky that noone else got hit or injured by his kite.

Gran Canaria

This happened at the Burrero Beach. Basically bad luck and overconfidence. I have been told (I was not there) that he tried to land his kite by himself in strong winds. A line got snagged and the kite looped and dragged him into rocks. He suffered a multiude of injuries to the head and the rest of his body. He died in the hospital.

All in all it has been a horrible week here with 3 serious incidences. It is a horrible reminder that we need to be more mindful of the common sense rules that have been established in the 20 years.

--
Gunnar

Thx for the details Gunnar.

Good to know what happened and hopefully we can learn from it.

Horrible.

Tried to self land myself in too strong wind. Never again - or then it will be Swedish style just releasing the kite. Also, as a beginner, rested my kite at 12 in unstable conditions - same there - never again. Got lifted the same way, but only barely off the ground - in other words lucky.

I can't help thinking sometimes it is easy to forget the power you got. Self landing is so easy when it goes according to plan, but boy the yank you get if the kite relaunches or even worse rolls. On the water it might not feel that bad because you might be able to hold your board on edge - but similar pull on land and you are most often flying forward.

Not suggesting that what was happening in this specific case of course. Sometimes you do everything right, but you are still unlucky. Impossible to remove all risk when kitesurfing.

Tragic and sad.

Is this uptick purely because news gets shared better than it used to? Why so many lately in this region?

Could also simply be more hours on the water by all kiters everywhere. Statically, just like anything, the more hours the higher the chance of incident...