Dumb move of the day - Sunday at EB
kid on red 2008 11m waroo letting his friend try out his kite. I was on water watching the show.. launching from shoreline with kite towards water (only smart thing done)..
guy obviously has no idea how to fly a kite and it goes up, then down, then relaunch and it goes up to 12...then dives directly towards the road, does at least 2 complete loops, scatters people and the beach and finally flags out to safety. i ride up and ask the kid that owns the kite (ive seen him trying to ride the last couple times i've been out.. new rider..lots of walks up the beach).. i say something like "are you giving a lesson?" he says "no" .. i say "does he know how to fly a kite?".. he says "ya, but not one this big".. i say "do not launch him again.. very unsafe"... and i ride off and kept a watch. if the owner of kite is reading this, you have to realize how absolutely stupid that was. if the guy you launched didnt know how to flag out the kite or if the wind came up he would have been seriously hurt. not to mention the ton of people on the beach.. stunts like that risk the beach access for all of us. Please dont ever do that again.. if your friend took lessons and you want to have him demo your kite.. or even if you are going to be one of those hardasses that insists on not taking lessons.. you launch the kite and you both must absolutely walk out to the sandbar.. takes a few minutes, but 10000% safer for everyone.. sorry to sound like a prick, but you really could have hurt your friend or someone on the beach. Everyone's primary concern is for safety and keep our riding areas open.. |
Ughh... dat don't sound two smart.
Well, smartest move of the day -- Mike Hall took his girlfriend downwind of everyone (except Ross, Adam, Bill and I who ride DW away from the crowd these days) to train her. Kudos to Mike. Mike gave his lesson where all lessons out there should be given, imo. Thanks for thinking of your girl and others and making the effort to positively avoiding a tangle up Mike (impossible to tangle with no one around). :p |
I actually saw that. Unfortunately I had pre-promised my girlfriend about a week ago that I'd go on a bike ride with her at the park(of course it ended up being on one of the best kite days in a while), so I wasn't out on the water. After our ride, we took the car down to EB to check out how many people were on the water. I'm a new rider, and just finishing up my lessons, so this was her first time actually going with me and seeing kiteboarding live and in person other than the videos she sees me watch.
So we're sitting in the car and I'm explaining everything to her, and she's asking questions. We see this guy tryin to launch and as you described its not going too good, and I'm explaining launching and landing to her cause one day I'm sure she'll have to help me launch. Suddenly this kite loops a couple times uncontrollably and scatters people. What's the end result? She's freaked out that she could screw up launching me one day, and I'm sure the first time we're at the beach together and I need a launch, that's the first memory she'll have. At least she knows it was just a screw up and that it doesn't translate into kiting=death |
Stevil Kenevil, you're my hero!!!
But seriously, Steve is right, there are WAY too many instructors in this area for kooks to be going out and learning on their own or from their friends. Seek out lessons and live to kite another day. :) |
Guys in questions came to the WSW safety class and show serious signs of wanting to learn the fundamentals of the sport. I think they are in alot better shape about the sport mentally, and have really good attitudes toward learning and wanting to be safe. We can only hope the lessons I taught them they will use.
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I agree that these guys need to be talked to, but lets try to keep it somewhat diplomatic as to help nurse these guys in the right direction rather than alienating them from wanting to enjoy this sport.
Good work though at recognizing and taking action Bryan and Steve-O, this is what needs to happen so thanks! |
I agree Danimal.
I am really glad that so many people are involved with wanting to keep things safe. I could tell many were concerned about it at EB yesterday and most riders were being pretty cool. At the same time, I think this is an exceptionally tricky topic (use of forum to call out) and could blow up in our faces or get negative and non-productive pretty quickly if it turns into a finger pointing contest, especially towards newbies. My main concern is that we might make newbies feel like if they screw up even once, our first response will be to grill them on the forum. That makes them less likely to ask for help or maybe try to learn on their own (maybe). I also have concerns about "who taught you anyways?" and other stuff like that. I think this rider was in the wrong, but it sounds like he could have been talked to (grilled) at the beach. I guess he was, so I am sort of not seeing the point in posting, unless he is a repeat offender and we sort of know it's gonna happen again. Can I suggest we try to work most stuff out at the launch site, that day? If the rider becomes a "repeat offender" over time, then maybe mentioning it on here is a good idea (I don't know). I am just concerned we might start listing every bad thing we see. One concern over that is the press and anyone else can easily hop on here and throw that stuff right back in our faces, or might get a one-sided view. I know on KF a few people now think all FL riders are wankers. That's not what I think we should do, personally. I know Jim Wilson (Ft DeSoto) reads this forum, which is in our favor. But, it could turn on us if someone wanted to paint us in the wrong light. We have PMs and phones and stuff (again, just ideas) I have real concerns over internet frenzy as opposed to face to face. There is absolutely no substitute for face to face, imo. In addition, I still think that it's our veteran riders that will most likely always be the hardest to deal with. I can't help but think a newbie is easier to target, so we do it. I happen to think the beach (especially with downwinders) is our biggest weakness right now, if riders cruise down the beach and repeatedly stay/ get close to shore. I have and always will think that the beach is the first place that we will lose. This is the type of thing I don't want to be right on, btw. But it's not hard to screw up and hit a person with your board when riding close on a DW or eventually clothes-line a person walking on the shoreline if you do enough tricks close to shore and dump the kite. It's coming up on March (spring break and seabreezes), and it doesn't take a genius to see how tons of spring breakers and guys showing off right next to them might turn out. Do we have any agreements whatsoever about staying away from shore? Or our we just blowing it off? Anyway, glad you guys care. My thoughts are just that, I am not ever going to pretend that I know the answers on how to do this "right". I do know having some guys that are concerned along with 95% of the riders being safe is far better than most areas in the country, so we have a really good start. |
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The couple instances aside, I still think I am very conscious of riders trying to leave the beach .. we MUST give them right of way. I came in twice yesterday and each time I went out (so 3 times total) I had to wait for guys as they rode up to the shoreline, did a quick jump transition right behind me where i had to move my kite clear across the window fully onshore to avoid being tangled. Not Cool. |
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I like to say that I would be calm and reasonable.. but I know that when I saw it happen my blood began to boil a bit. Next time I will put down my kite.. see if I can grab some others to help me approach him.. maybe an instructor so that if the questions of lessons come up they can jump in and see what can be worked out. I know that I've seen stuff like this go down and Ive seen guys on the beach offer immediate help/lessons and work with getting the rider up and going that day ..free of charge.. and everyone walks away feeling better. if anyone finds out who the guy is, hopefully they can get a hold of them and figure out a way to get the new rider on the water in the safest way possible. |
here's my dumb move of the day...
back story ... As soon as the wind started picking up i was riding up wind like a mofo...(hard to do on my french fry board) put my kite down for a while after trying a jibe w/a underhand loop kinda(not sure what to call it) and bashing the hell outa my leg.... so around 5:00 i decided to get a quick couple of tacks but i couldnt get up on a plane...(wind had died) well not with my board. So im walking back up the beach and this woman says watch out...! your going to trip over my lines....and she goes behind me... so i look to see what shes doing for 2 seconds, I turn around and my kites wrapping up with someone else's....:eek: he pulled the qr and fed his bar through my lines ... but damn that almost sucked bigtime .... |
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