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Originally Posted by RushMarkRush
"What the hell was she thinking," instead of helping.
There is virtually nothing you can do to help someone in this situation unless you are standing on the beach and act fast and know exactly what to do. When you are flying a kite, YOU are the only one in control of it. You are right, as this can happen to anyone........but, not jumping close to shore and wearing a kite leash work too.
We have had a lot of calls as to exactly what happened and what went wrong. There was only one eye witness account from the park by an experienced windsurfer.
No one is placing any blame here, but it shows us what can happen and makes us all think of how to avoid a situation like this. No cars crashing or anyone getting hurt makes it a lesson learned, with no penalties.
Let's face it, this guy is one of the best riders around here.
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This sounds similar to what happened at Hobie Beach in Miami too many times in past years before leashes became popular and essential gear for kiters. Hobie was chosen for SW, onshore winds often enough. Due to nearby land effects and common frontal squalls the wind is frequently gusty to very gusty.
Kites would go out of control and without a leash blast across the 5 to 10 ft. beach, narrow parking lot and into the four land road. A few times they hung up on traffic lights. Fortunately no windshields were ever covered up in the process. A number of folks were also lofted ashore suffering varying degrees of injury, sometimes quite serious. Most were jumping or riding too close to shore instead of outside 100 yards from shore outside the buoyed swim area.
Just because you have a kite leash doesn't mean it won't pull away from the rider or even break. Some kite leash designs are prone to this during release under moderate to high winds. It would be good to try to address this before it happens.
For years some have said we should voluntarily stop riding at Hobie to avoid more accidents and incidents. Unfortunately, there are tons of riders in Miami and few shoreside launches particularly those for SW winds. I suspect this is not the case where you are, you have other options. It might be worth looking into this and talking it over among yourselves.