Do you fly your foilkite on ocean/sea/deep water?

[tkaraszewski]

Yes, I do.

[jumptheshark]

Any kite can become a nightmare. ANY kite. If you are interested in certain types of kites you need to learn the ropes so to speak in safe and controlled conditions. Your questions are going to get a wide variety of responses that will seem to contradict as all of us have different levels of experience, skill, and risk tolerance.

I now ride single skin "non relaunchable" kites almost 100% of the time. My distance from shore varies greatly with the season and conditions, but there are always a bunch of sessions that present no small risk of a long swim. Firstly, you just don't go out into cold rough open water conditions without being dressed and physically competent enough for the swim. Simple as that. Anyone who doesn't have or simply doesn't want to ride in a truly cold water suit, you has no business in cold water.

With experience and practice, even single skin kites can be mastered to the point of significant risk reduction. For instance, where some people are deathly afraid of the idea of a "non relaunchable" kite on principle. Others have spent enough time with them to not only relaunch them, but use them for swim out wet drift launching in previously inaccessible spots.

My advice is to start with the basics and try a Soul or whatever other kite your interested in at a nice safe spot on a nice safe day. If you like it, keep using it until you have a couple of seasons of time on it. You will eventually encounter challenges. If the kite is worth it to you and you love the ride, you can always look for specific guidance and learn to overcome the challenge. If not, you keep that kite for specific days at specific spots.

No way can anyone expect to hear about using a foil kite as a sail or learn self rescue techniques simply from reading about it. You have to go do it, sometimes over and over to actually figure it out.

[SolarSet]

Soul can fill up with water if you land it leading edge down and you tension all your lines for long time like 15-20min it could start to take water through air intakes. It happened to me only once as for some strange reason briadals go tangle and got seaweed on them and I couldn't relunch for 20min or so. Once briadals were sorted it took so much water that even when flipped on trailing edge it wouldn't relunch. It happened to me once in like 50 sessions I had it for.
Bowties and other crazy shit that can happen to foil kite usually happens when there is marginal wind and I landed jump bad (all line got slack and kite overflown me)
I would say be mindful of these possible scenarios and gain experience by not chasing low 10kts windspeeds in the beginnings.

I never chase low windspeeds, but in the past ive had fair share of bowties on a older flysurfer speed after a jump, i sent it too too hard and it would to 2 o clock and the kite would fly past me and bowtie. What would you do if it bowtied? Try to relaunch/untangle or directly start wrapping up and swim/sail back?

as you said it might happen if you let kite overfly you after bad jump. If wind is strong kite will likely to power itself up even if lines are slack kite will tension lines. Problem is when it's light wind and it falls off sky before it can be powered by wind.
I never had to uptight bow as I didn't ride it on deep water. I only have 3 bowties in 50 sessions with all in light wind days.
It take some mussel memory to remember not to oversteer foil kite on jumping, typically I'm pulling bar in while countersteering other direction once its 11/13 O'clock.
I don't have experience from Speed but most people confirm that Soul if more user friendly.

[Sceotend]

I found this exciting!



I think someone said that it's possible to roll up and relaunch this way many times in a single session if needed (e.g. bowtied badly).

How to prepare for the swim-out launch:

[rnelias]

I think the worst case scenario is when you're riding a board that doesn't float very well as twin tips but, for hydrofoils, that you can easily roll up the kite and pack it small, it's just a matter of putting it over the board and keep float/swin back to shore or call a rescue. Assuming you're wearing a good floating vest, the water is warm enough (or you're using a dry suit) and your cellphone is with you.

[Peter_Frank]

I think the worst case scenario is when you're riding a board that doesn't float very well as twin tips but, for hydrofoils, that you can easily roll up the kite and pack it small, it's just a matter of putting it over the board and keep float/swin back to shore or call a rescue. Assuming you're wearing a good floating vest, the water is warm enough (or you're using a dry suit) and your cellphone is with you.

I assume you mean beginner hydrofoils, or race hydrofoils?

As most kitefoilboards are shorter than TT's, and many has just as low volume.

I dont ride out very far, but this is in general I dont like it with any foil kite.
Big foilkites in 5-6 knots, a major risk of going down - and why risk doing this far out?

Small fun foilkites, well, the fun starts close to shore where there are sandbanks and waves to play around in.

I dont have any urge to go far out, as it is never better further out, on the contrary.

Of course I might have some longer legs further out in the summer, occasionally - but it does not really make much sense.

Just opposite the race foilers - they ALWAYS ride so far out (upwind and downwind training) that they get in trouble quite often, and have to swim ashore or be rescued

If out on a bigger board than the typical kitefoilboards which are smaller than TT's, I could go further out without risk as a packdown is possible now - but as said, no need for this.

Peter

[jumptheshark]

Good point about all the good riding conditions being relatively close to shore. Still happens tho. I venture to different spots depending on wind direction and we have at least one offshore shoal that sets up like nothing else when its on. Super fun and its a pretty easy 15 min reach to get there. Was out there about 5 times this last fall when we got a lot of south. Dropped a peak out there in breaking waves twice. Would be a long swim in and then you'd still be about 5K from your car. Worst case scenario you could swim in to the shoal and launch from a bird shit stained gravel beach, but it never came to that. Packed it up right away, drifted out of the break and wet reset both times.

But yes, most days, looking for waves is a close to shore endeavor.

[jumptheshark]

Nice work on the vids Sceotend. Very concise.

That's how its done! Get good at it and the world is your oyster.

The smaller the kite, the easier it gets.

[rnelias]

I assume you mean beginner hydrofoils, or race hydrofoils?

As most kitefoilboards are shorter than TT's, and many has just as low volume.

Not exactly...

I've been using a 15,8L/120cm pocket board and it floats extremely well with a F-One aluminum mast and fuselage. I've already had to self-rescue on my Soul 8 and 12m. In both cases I was close to the beach (about 500m) and, in fact, was easier than I expected to pack the kite and use the board to bring it back to the beach

As someone said. Self rescue is something that you must train sometimes on purpose to figure out what can go wrong and avoid problems when you really need it.

[Nelis]

Nice topic! I think kite-safety has a long way to go, for example in comparison to avalanche safety where a structured assessment method is in place which is widely accepted and used.

Using a foilkite means you need extra floatation, so always wear a vest. For foiling also always a helmet, and since you're less active on a foil, overdress even more.

I fly my Soul 10m predominantly around Scheveningen with twintip and foil, and have first hand experience getting into this, so I will chip into this but also interested in learning some more to make my own experience safer.

In the beginning I've experienced two similar crashes, one with my earlier Speed4 10m and one with my Soul, where it was leading edge-down on the water after a mis-timed jump. I think I let the bar out on the jump too, which I think now is a mistake in the first place letting it overfly. There was definitely chop, and the kite was lying just outside the breaking zone. I let the bar out, and tried to relaunch sideways, which Flysurfer is advertising to be possible, very much like an LEI. In both cases I ended up with a water soaked sea anchor, within 2 minutes. So nothing even close to 20 minutes. In the end I swam a bit until I had ground underfoot, and gently pulled the kite towards the beach (which was near impossible), and managed to get it to land. I had the Soul inspected and trimmed by the kiterepair shop afterwards to be sure I didn't damage anything. Safe to say my confidence in foil kites was gone completely after this and almost gave up.

To prevent an incident like this I think it's important to pull the bar all the way in immediately after a crash on the leading edge, and then proceed to reverse launch using the stopper balls (when using a Flysurfer bar). But maybe there's more important tips?

Fast forward, I use the Soul to do longer distances from Scheveningen to Hoek van Holland, and the other way to Wassenaarse Slag around the harbour entrance and de Pier. The overall confidence of the foil kite when in the air is much better than a LEI, the security of it just hanging there without hindenburging is awesome. The Soul doesn't really bow-tie I find, and when it does it will unfold itself pretty easily. I practiced a full self rescue as well, which is very good for confidence. I always have a tether on my foilboard to secure it to my harness when self-rescueing. To start on the North Sea, go with West or North direction (cross onshore) which enables getting out easily and returning to the beach easy when things go tits up.

I bought a Peak4 4m too, so will be testing this with fresh anxiety in the near future.