I need help does anyone know of any tips and tricks to remove rats nest. I'm talking serious mess here I was up hours last night trying to sort it but have ended up making it worse it's just more tightly compact now
I basically got frustrated with it and packed it away all wrong. I pulled the quick release to test because I had replaced all lines so got my wife to go grab the kite I specifically told her DONT grab the bridle lines grab the kite wing tip!, what did she do? she grabbed the bridle the kite took a gust and powered up wrapping around her wrist and cutting her wrist and fingers quite deep! (She wont be doing that again) After that I just packed it up without much care.
Sorry for your wife's injuries. Hope she gets well soon! BTW, hope you did walk/run downwind as soon as she grabbed the kite, that would have lessened the tension on the bridle, and possibly prevent cuts...
As for sorting out the bridle. Don't disconnect the bar. Take your time, and do it on a windless day in a large, cool area.
If the bar lines are attached, worst case, a part of the kite is gone through a part of the bridle, which you can easily pull out.
If you have disconnected the bar, the separate left and right sides from each other, and then pull large knots apart until no knots are left.
Local Beach: Brancaster Norfolk 46 miles- just need a hard beach
Favorite Beaches: mablephorpe , cleephorpes uk-just need a hard beach
Style: landboarding with a petzl work harness
Gear: old blades and old flysurfer's , ckb/dex carbon landboards, modified airdeck and a home made snow board with barrel wheels ,soul's , spd5's. over 30ish old blades all set up to go ,i like a bit of old skool
yea i agree try to sort it with everything still attached as you know it is right-dissconection could make it worse ,and getyou in a worst muddle ,good luck and take your time and buy your wife some chocolates
lots of gentle pulls on ya lines
Whatever you do, don't pull any of the bridle lines tight. If you have any tight knots, you will have to work at them to get them loose. One method is to put a knot in your mouth and gently use your teeth to work it loose. Once you get the knots loose, put both hands with fingers outstretched under the rats nest and shake it up and down, pulling gently back and forth to see what can sort out on it's own. Keep the rats nest loose.
It is a very tedious job getting bridles untangled. After you do it once, you will be very careful when wrapping up your flying lines and bridles. Hope you wife wrist/fingers are healing well.
When looking at your nest there will be lines crisscrossing all over the place. However there will be places where it is not a single line emerging out of a junction but a loop, ie there will be 2 lines coming out of a hole rather than 1. Identify these and pull the loops through.
If you are moving single lines you are just moving loops about. Give my best to the wife etc! As others have said leave everything connected otherwise you can introduce knots as well as loops and that can be a nightmare!!
I had a similar problem a while back, after hours of getting no where I sent it to a paraglider repair outfit and they sorted it for me for £60. It made for an expensive session but got it sorted.
It's my first foil kite and I tried pulling the loops etc but couldn't get it any better at all. Much like you I had packed away in a real rush as was late for work, if it happened again I would have tried to sort at the beach before packing up.
Since speaking to paragliders and experienced foil kite flyers I think once you have more experience you are able to work it out better and like someone said above it can be a quick fix, however the guy who did fix it for me said it took two of them 4 hours to clear, he said they had to disconnect the bar in the end.
Good luck with it, on the plus side I haven't had any issues since and its been a couple of years!
