[ricki]

Everyone deserves a dream and a chance at reaching it. I hope Dirk reaches his and stays healthy and whole in the process. Still, sending out the proper example and message has a role in this as well.

For so many years some have been trying to fight the perception that kiters are OK going out in storms. So many guys have died and been maimed in excessively gusty winds already.

Roughly 67% of the fatalities have happened in excessively gusty winds.
Roughly 42% were known to have happened in squalls.

The most experienced guys are the ones most at risk. 80% had from 2 to 4 years plus kiting experience.
Our most experienced riders SHOULD NOT be the ones with the highest casualty rate if things are working the way they should be. At least not by such a large margin.
For every fatality there are MANY more non-fatal, serious injuries which is the true point of this.

Quite a few are or were extremely experienced, e.g. former olympic windsurfing champion, pro kiteboarder, patriarch of kiteboarding instruction in a region of the USA, an extremely experienced waterman, windsurfer and kiteboarders and on and on.

Kites are ill suited to excessively gusty winds. Hopefully, there is little doubt about C kites at this point in stormy conditions in the minds of the majority of riders. Even flat kites can kick your butt particularly if something goes wrong. A very long list of things have gone wrong, some several times in my time and that of quite a few others in kitesurfing. It is just the way it is. Counting on things work perfectly in extreme conditions is a poor risk in lessor conditions in my experience. Storm conditions, delivering gusts to 50 to 60 kts. plus up from next to nothing at times, violent and rapid direction changes and reversals, heavy seas. Bad idea for most riders.

Good luck Dirk, in all ways.