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Originally Posted by RickI
Yes, this morning for about an hour. I was even powered up and boosting at points, unpredicted and fun! A squall had just moved onshore a few miles to the north and the wind was up for a while. The coast looked clear for nearby inbound squall clouds visually and on the radar so I had at it for a while. Unfortunately, a low settled in a while later and I ended up doing an involuntary downwinder just to get past the out of bounds guarded beach area in Delray to be able to land. Summer! Fortunately my wife anticipated this and tooled down to pick me up.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by kiwiar2000
You could've avoided that involuntary downwinder, Rick. Normally, when I see a squall approaching in less than 5 minutes, i lower the kite down and land it on the water either at the left or right. Then I pull in the 5th line all the way until I get hold of the kite itself. Let the squall pass by and let out the fifth line nice and easy, just to be safe...
thats my 2 centavos
-Danny
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There was no squall in my case, at least not inbound to my area. If there was, I wouldn't have had a kite up or been out on the water. It had passed inland several miles to the north as I had mentioned and the radar and view were both clear well upweather. The low followed fairly inexplicably about two hours after it had passed inland.
5th lines are good as far as they go but they aren't magic. Checkout what happened to the rider in Ft. Lauderdale with his 5th line fully pulled in when he was hit by a fairly mild squall by local standards.
I would land, have the kite anchored, both lines off of one side of it or better still rolled up and anchored before the temperature, wind speed or direction change with the arrival of the squall. Too many guys have been hurt trying to do otherwise, like:
myself, 6 years ago:
http://fksa.org/viewtopic.php?t=210
a bunch of guys two weeks ago, this is particularly worth a read:
http://fksa.org/viewforum.php?f=81
and a few hundred in between worldwide, perhaps more. A number are analyzed on this site and on kiteforum.
Inbound squalls are not worth messing with.