[alarier]

From the perspective of being new to the sport, I can say that kiteboarding has brought nothing but joy to my life and my family. In my opinion, it’s one of the most exciting sports out there. However, it is exciting enough to turn dangerous REALLY QUICK if you don’t know or are unsure of what you are doing. I got into the sport knowing and understanding this fact. It helps that I’ve had a formal University level education in Aviation Safety, which covers other potentially dangerous sports much like kiteboarding.

Throughout aviation, we have large organizations dedicated to safety, such as Flight Safety International. These organizations promote safety and awareness. Perhaps it’s time to do something similar with kiteboarding. Since almost nobody understands kiteboarding, and the dangerous situations that inexperienced kiteboarders can get themselves in to, I believe that a kiteboarding safety organization would benefit everyone. For example, if a surfer is doing something dangerous, lifeguards have the skill set to quickly understand the problem and properly react to it before anyone gets hurt. Can this be said about a kiteboarder doing something dangerous? Probably not.

The idea of self regulating is a good one and something that we should all be actively doing no matter what. I truly believe that Good Breeze Kiteboarding AND 321 Kiteboarding do a bang up professional job educating and promoting safety, but they can’t be everywhere all at once. When these guys are not in the area, the occasional idiot will do stupid crap and get us all in trouble, and guess who gets the heat even if it’s a tourist doing the stupid crap, , , 321 and Good Breeze , , not THAT’S NOT fair. The self regulation problem comes when the “dangerous kiteboarder” is observed and nobody wants to approach this person for fear of starting trouble or retaliation. The fear stems from believing that if the kiteboarder really is a jerk, a scuffle might break out and you will not have the support of law enforcement or the lifegards. It’s a basic problem that needs to be addressed.