Quote:
Originally Posted by Todd RT
Yikes, looks like that rider came out unharmed.
I tell ya' what.. 80 seconds is a LONG TIME to deal with an out of control kite. Try holding your breath for 80 secs!
I carry a hook knife, which would obviously have stopped the looping kite. But couldn't the rider have simply flagged the kite? Or do you think the lines were too much of a tangled mess???
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Yes, I understand he was ok. Might have gone ashore over the bars, hit something, etc., so luck prevailed. I thought this was a lagoon in Brazil, it actually is in Egypt. 80 seconds would likely seem like 15 or more minutes I would guess, not fun either.
Anyway, once your kite is looping the outcome becomes uncertain. Most of us tend to hold on and try to work it out. Trouble is, it can't always be worked out, that is the kite stabilized. It is not uncommon in these cases for the Emergency Depowering of the kite to be disabled. If leader lines wrap bar ends, bridles wrap kite ends or bind in pulleys, or ???, all that depowering can vanish. Went through this myself only in December. Cutting out isn't all that certain either. At the speed Karolina is moving in the second video it seems unlikely she could manage to do much more than be dragged and periodically get yanked out of and across the water.
The best approach assuming there is no one at risk downwind is to release the kite entirely, early. Several guys have been taken out by looping kites, some over 3 miles of dragging at high speed, some over far shorter distances. If you can't release the kite for whatever reason, hope you can cut out or something else breaks, someone catches the kite, etc.. Sometimes we get lucky, not always though. Avoid looping, there are lots of things that can cause it, some more obvious than others.