Postby Foil » Sun Nov 15, 2020 5:14 am
I would say this situation is one that most foilers find themselves in a few times, mostly happens when you are still building muscle memory, and this means not just in the early months but later on when trying to foil in some sizable waves for the first time, but as someone has already said having lightweight gear helps a lot when in this scary situation,
It was a very gusty windy day on Flag beach yesterday and there were 2 very new foilers trying to get going, and I watched them trying and trying again to get up on the foil, and as I expected they just could not control the sudden fast power surges of the strong gusts, and the Foil kept leaping into the air with the guys being landed flat on their backs looking at their gear rocket out and up in front, typical early moments when the foil can shoot into the lines, or shoot straight downwind ready to get tangled in the lines if the back lines go slack and the kite falls down in front.
The one that is even more scary and happened to me was my first try at going over the top of a sizeable wave to try my first drop in down a wave face, yikes that was scary, so scary I immediately sat back as you do with the resulting mess of the foil shooting up and out in front and me being rolled forward and wrapped up in the lines and the board being caught up in the lines directly in front of me, with waves pushing me right up to the carbon bits, stuff of nightmares!
I was very near the point of going for my knife, but somehow stayed calm enough to get free and work it out, but it made me test my kite knife later that day, as I needed to know how easily it would cut me out of a bad wrap up, it was maybe 4 years old, never tested for years and it had stopped working, very quickly replaced with a parachute line cutter, from a certified seller,and now tested very regularly.slices easily through thick 6mm line, even pu covered center power line.
I think after experiencing a few of these hook up situations and feeling that fear then you quickly learn how to avoid them, and recognise the moments before its too late, basically the same reflexes you learn for all the scary moments we all get to experience, death speed runs, falls down towards a side on rising wing set,
Time on the water builds muscle memory, and I now avoid these risky moments, I sail 100% strapped down which I find helps keep control, especially at high speed and on waves, my straps are groove Soft straps which let me eject very quickly if needed, as my most used "get clear"method is to just power up and get ripped clear of the board with the kite rising me clear and away from my board and sharp carbon bits,
But yes, keeping calm and resist panicking work well, along with light gear, rounded off sharp trailing edges, and rounded off pointy dagger points especially found on most rear wings, get these sanded down so you can press your skin against them without cutting in,
get a knife that actually works well on the thicker lines, or multiple wrapped lines, and position it where you can easily grab it, I will post up a photo of mine which is now sorted for quick response and knife through butter efficiency.
Q line is one particular line that can really cause problems if your knife is not great,
Many years back -17 years back,I had a really bad lofting and landed badly with compound fractures and kite trying to re loft me high again to certain doom, my kiting buddy could not cut through my kite lines with his harness knife, they were standard Q lines, and again a standard line cutter of the cheap type failed to cut these lines, make sure your knife works on all your lines, not just the thin ones.
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- leeuwen (Sun Nov 15, 2020 10:01 am)