Postby jumptheshark » Sun Apr 07, 2019 4:07 pm
Alright, I'm really only continuing here for fun, Don't get all upset or think I'm a safety nut. If you think I'm actually upset at the OP, just skip this and continue on with your misconceptions in tact.
This is not quite the same as posting many other feats of talent. It's an instructional clip that makes it look easy. It's not really. You need to be really good at light wind wet kite relaunch. The vast majority are not.
I'm not saying their kite is going to death loop them down the lake to their doom. I'm saying people will inevitably try it in more wind and chop than ideal, get their lines in a rats nest and kite full of water. The subtlety required with respect to dry fabric management, particular line tensioning, patients, ability to jig a wet kite up off the water in 10 knots. Its all pretty tricky.
It's a great video, with the most important parts covered quickly. Nice for the ones actually up to the task, and courteously sped up as not to be a time waster.
I have no experience unpacking a foil while swimming and getting it up off the water. I have more than enough experience swimming out with kites and drifting them to recognize that what LEI and foil have in common is enough to warrant restraint in advocating it to the masses. The swimming, board management, offshore nature of it, distance drifted, line management and deep water light wind relaunching is in my opinion not as easy as it looks when you speed it up and edit out the long moments of patience.
The patience alone counts out most kiters, especially the stoked! At our local we have an old ships harbour as one of our best launches. Now the observant would note that a harbour is generally chosen because its sheltered! A real downwind hole, but the area just upwind is fantastic. Not a drift launch, but there sure are commonalities. You can put a kite up on dry land easy enough, but have to hop in through an opening in the trees and drag yourself out far enough to get up and headed upwind. All summer long, I witness people's lack of patients cost them sessions. The time it takes to drag another 50m before they try to get up is just too much to ask sometimes! Kites drop on the daily and are swum in to the rocks, reset, launched and then dropped again. It happens all summer long. How can you not see a clip like this and just know in your bones that it's really only applicable for maybe 15% of kiters out there.
No big. This vid is not for most kiters. Thing is, you share the forum with everyone.
