"Rick, have you heard any news of this?
Kite Jam
There is movement in the Florida Senate to regulate kiteboarding. The parasailing bill was amended to include kite surfing. I'm not sure if this would just means mandatory insurance or what other regulations will apply. This bill is pretty popular and is moving through..."
Yes, I saw a strange article about it earlier today. (
http://exm.nr/1ib8e1A )
At this time, reference to kiting in the TWO proposed bill amendments has been withdrawn. So, as far as kiters are concerned this is a non-issue, for now in the current wording of the bill.
Providing some background, I looked into it and called the office of Maria Sachs who introduced the bill into the senate about the situation. They said the application to kiting had been withdrawn with few other details offered.
I did some more digging and found the text of the two amendments files within the last few days with each being withdrawn.
http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2014/0320 specifically
http://bit.ly/1oKVK0I and
http://bit.ly/1eqvzaX The amendments were poorly written and considered on net. This may account for why they were so rapidly withdrawn. They were far over reaching in several areas, requiring non-inflatable PFD's, specifying hours of operation, rear view mirrors, a second observer on the board??? Obviously the authors had no idea of what kiting is, how it is conducted and physical constraints as to the number of people who can be on a kiteboard! Also, where are we supposed to mount the rear view mirror on our kiting setup, absurd!
Still, the citation of the 50 year old FAA FARs dealing with kites in proximity to airports is quite concerning in state legislation. I concluded they found this obscure FAR to provide some teeth in their effort to regulate parasaliing and to bring a Federal Agency into the fray, the FAA for Pete's sake. Parasailing needs serious reform and use of simple common sense and good seamenship, but the FAA?
I don't know why efforts were made to bring kiting into this mess and think we need to learn why it happened in the first place and through two amendments.
I hope we have heard the end of this but the situation bears close monitoring by kiting interests. A summary of things dealing with paragliding at the Capitol is at
http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sectio...7&Session=2014
.