Crossed Lines Caught On Video?
 

Not sure about the crossed lines and yet given the hesitating kite behavior and nuking flight 180 degrees across the sky dragging the kiter into the water, makes me think that might have been it. North was the first to come out with kook-proof lines too, go figure. The helper shouldn't have released the kite without seeing the kite wants to "bite" into the air and looking down the lines to make sure they aren't crossed. He sure as hell shouldn't have thrown it up particularly in high wind. I wonder if the helper was a windsurfer and not familiar with any of this. The kiter screwed up by not making sure his helper was experienced if this was the case.



What do you think?

I initially thought the kiter might have been standing too far downwind of the kite causing it to drift downwind and stall upon release. Not sure at this point. Never been a fan of launching with the kite inland of the kiter. It can workout if you attach crossed lines, ending up with you being dragged into the water. This may have been the case here. Of course if you get gusted, harder to control the weather than your own diligence in preflighting, you get dragged inland.

Not sure I buy it. Too much wind for the launcher to be manipulating the angle of the kite. Looks to me also that the kite is too far up wind.

Also, it's not where you launch the kite (inland or towards the water) which is as important as where down wind is. Every launchmare I've seen, kiter is dragged directly down wind regardless of launch direction, as he was in this case.

Hmm. Looks like a wrong positioned launch like others said. Noticed that after the kite crashed in the water, it sat pretty nicely on the edge of the wind window in launch position. Would a kite with crossed lines do this?

Also check out the dude that walks downwind of the kite and gets scared silly by the kite rushing by him. And the lady that walks in front - hopefully she was clear by the time they launched.

I noticed that and am still not sure. Looking at how the kite reacted it seems safe to conclude the kite was too far forward relative to the kiter and stalled when released. This was further aggravated by the position the kite was thrown into by the assistant. When the kite flew 180 degrees across the sky in the opposite direction, a classic crossed line behavior, it seemed to bounce off the surface. I've noticed this in the past when playing with cross lines intentionally in lighter winds. The kite doesn't want to bite into the air but sit there. This is something assistants should look for when helping to launch someone. That is until it loads up and goes off nuking across the sky.