Sceotend wrote:
I slightly disagree here. I have had one major mess and couldn't get it sorted out without detaching. I only made it after 3 hours struggling without much progress. I would have done it sooner butread somewhere not to ever detach. Once I did I made steady progress for two hours. It can be just me, I couldn't figure out a methodologically way to progress without detaching.
3 hours is too much. Even 5 minutes is a lot. Sure if bridle is full of seaweed then time increases.
My tips:
- do not detach anything!
- Bridles from kite end to lines to bar is a closed system! No knots are possible, with knows I mean like figure-8 or hitch..
- Only "knots" possible are loops which can be opened by pulling loop out from "bird's nest" one at the time.
- Start from kite, from bridle attachment point at kite end put all bridle to same side, for example to trailing edge. If some bridle is going to leading edge and under the kite and some to trailing edge you will have crossed lines which can be de-crossed just by bringing bridle aroung wing tip.
- lift bridle mess up, do not tighten it, but start identifying loops and pull that loop out from bird's nest.
- if you weight wing tip in high wind and do not secure trailing edge with sand kite might flap up and down self-tying these bridle loops. I usually don't but sometimes I've gotten some birds nest due to flapping.
- You can also tension lines to reduce flapping but not too much to make kite slide on surface.
My typical pre-launch check is:
- I separate red and green side
- all bridle/lines comes from TE from kite
- I rotate Z so that Z is not going around A-B-C but hanging loose.
- I lift row A into air to see if there are loops. If there are I go to loop and pull the loop out.
- I lift row B too..
- I walk to bar combing 4 lines (steering, front, front, steering as combing order) and un-cross back/front-lines if needed but putting bar between both front lines.
- and I launch
- if I detach bar from kite, I larks head steering to that side's front line, and then finally larks head frontlines together so that all lines are in unison and cannot go inside bridle in single and mess up. As all attachment points are in unison everything is easy to pull open.