#4
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Re: Off shore
Quote:
Another common cause is the passage of cold fronts. The wind cycles clockwise. So, a southeasterly wind can shift to SW to W to even NW fairly suddenly. You start in sideshore and suddenly it's offshore. Guys have lost boards around here. Another interesting part of some arrival cold fronts are powerful leading edge squall lines. These have messed up and killed riders in the USA and beyond for sometime. As a rule you can't use a kite to sail into shore in dead offshore winds. Sailing with a C kite is pretty easy on the water. I am still trying to figure out how to do this with a flat kite with any efficiency, not good. You need to drag your gear in side stroking. If you just try to sit it out, offshore you go. They say riders should not abandon their more visible and floatable kites. You had better have a cellphone, someone watching you or whatever. It can be a huge empty ocean out there particularly at night as these guys established in their incident. The squall lines can be just plane nasty, spiking to two to three times + original wind speed and often from a direction 90 degrees off the former direction. It is fairly easy to anticipate cold fronts from reports, weather maps, radar and sat. images. Thermal winds can be far more localized are much harder to predict, especially when they will turn off and regional winds will be resume over the coastline.
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FKA, Inc. transcribed by: Rick Iossi |
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