I recently had to rescue a friends runaway kite and board while foiling. Having not thought about it before I found it tricky and had to learn on the job so to speak. I've rescued many while twin tipping or riding a surfboards but it was very tricky now seeing as I was riding a hydrofoil. Wind had shifted slightly off shore at this stage so it wasn't really an option to let the gear drift back to shore, especially seeing as the next shore would have been 1000 miles away in another country,,,,, yep, I had to do something.
My way that day was to first body drag his surfboard board back to the beach then go back out and grab his kite, again body dragging it. Unfortunately I didn't have a spare safety or any rope on hand so I had to muscle it. The board, a Nugget, felt too big and caught too much wind when I tried to foil back to the beach so I just flipped it over and put it on top of my board then body dragged the 2 boards to safety.
Next I grabbed the runaway kite by its wing tip hooking my hand in the kites steering line Y and then holding onto my front foot strap. With his kite wing tip and my board in one hand, I flew my kite slowly but steadily and body dragged back to the beach. His kite had, by now, lost a bit of air so it was laying flat on the water so it didn't flip and flop around any more, just stayed on the water luckily. If I felt threatened at any stage all I had to do was open my hand and let go and simply body drag myself away so I didn't feel I was in any danger there.
Anyway, I was wondering, what's your techniques, experiences and suggestions, I'd love to hear them? Is there a better way, I wanna know your thoughts?
Cheers,
Robbie
ps friend was very grateful, so bought me not 1 but 2 cartons of beer
