Owch, That looks painful!
Guess it’s not that bad with everyone covered head to toe in neoprene?
it was ok no pain... complete neoprene gloves an booties are needed now with air an water @ 7°C...
hail was max 1cm... luckily...
The thunderclap was more frightening...
Nice video. It is best to land and secure your kite before there is any change in wind speed,hail or temperature (normally). It was plenty cold already on that last point. Gust fronts can come very rapidly and you can be dragged and/or flying before you know it.
Nice video. It is best to land and secure your kite before there is any change in wind speed,hail or temperature (normally). It was plenty cold already on that last point. Gust fronts can come very rapidly and you can be dragged and/or flying before you know it.
Hi Rick,
from the moment that I saw the hail coming (I thaught it was rain) I came out of the water, but there is a 10-15 min walk from the water line to the beach where hopefully there was somebody to catch the kite... it was impossible to land the kite alone in >20kn of wind on the water line... (unless I pulled the QR). And nothing on the beach to secure the kite...
You cannot see it on the video but I kept the kite as low as possible and my hand was on the QR... I would have released if I had any doubt... but the wind was never more than 30kn and I kan keep my 9 safely in more wind than that...
But you are right... better safe than sorry... in doubt get out of the water...
Usually here it is not as extreme high "extra" wind when it happens, more often a heavy rain shower that hurts your eyes, and we ride through, or hail, but once out we usually ride on because going ashore where there COULD be obstackles is even more risky than staying out (can always release yes, have never been necessary yet but I know it might happen one day)
We have about the same weather conditions here in Denmark, as in the Netherlands - so strange things happens now and then, after 44 years surfing on the ocean
Haha, I was just reminiscing about one of the times I was kiting in a hail storm.
That did hurt. Plus I was a ways out to sea. So sunk down in the water until just my helmet was out of the water and one arm fling the kite.
Then carried on kiting once the hail subsided.