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Old 01-24-2005, 09:39 PM
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ricki ricki is offline
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There is a LOT more to kiteboarding than just rigging, riding and throwing some tricks.

Decorating trees, houses, walls etc. with lofted riders isn't going to help our access or the guys that got slammed for that matter. A man was partially paralyzed recently when he was lofted in FAR less powerful conditions a short distance on to shore.

PLEASE learn about kiteboarding before JUST DOING IT.


KNOW about your local weather, read the forecasts, know the signs of changing weather, rig for anticipated conditions. Monitor weather conditions continuously and a lot more.


IF excessively gusty winds hit, DESPITE all your best efforts to avoid it, DEPOWER IMMEDIATELY, WHILE YOU HAVE THE OPTION.


Once you are lofted and flying through the air or being ripped across the water at speed, you may not be able to pull off depowering the kite. It can be mere seconds from lofting/dragging to impact with NO time to react. What do you do if you drive off of a cliff ... Not much, it's too late.


Looking cool is important, right? Best to thoroughly know what is going on to avoid looking stupid AND risking trashing your kite. How will you look to your friends if your actions get everyone kicked out of the launch?


More ideas about these and related subjects appear at:
http://www.kiteforum.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=2300704

Some information about weather planning appears at:
http://www.kiteforum.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=2300711


While you are checking the weather forecast, check the Sat. images and realtime winds at ikitesurf and nws.noaa.gov .

You can often see the leading edge of the cold front in the sat. images and perhaps also the leading edge squalls with some wet cold fronts. ALSO, look up coast to see if the front has triggered wind spikes. Look at the wind speeds and times in the following plots for stations further to the north. Some cold fronts have violent embedded squalls at their leading edge. Realtime winds with frequent direction changes and rapidly varying gusts can be a give away of such unstable potentially hazardous conditions.


The front hit at about 5:30 am here and stayed up for a while.


Further south, it hit at around 6:30 am and stayed up for a while


At the site, further south still, it went off at 9 am and stayed up for a while.
SURPRISE, SURPRISE, who could have possibly predicted this would happen?


Anyone.


So, risk being clueless cannon fodder OR learn your game, please. This isn't rocket scicence. Learn about YOUR local conditions. Why risk looking like a loser because of ignorance?



Have a care out there.
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