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Yikes, looks like that rider came out unharmed.
I tell ya' what.. 80 seconds is a LONG TIME to deal with an out of control kite. Try holding your breath for 80 secs! I carry a hook knife, which would obviously have stopped the looping kite. But couldn't the rider have simply flagged the kite? Or do you think the lines were too much of a tangled mess???
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"I LOVE the smell of WIND in the morning... Smells like..... KITING!!" "The biggest drawback of kiteboarding is the adverse effects it has on getting anything else done." |
#2
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Pretty scary moments for him I am sure. I think he's unharmed though.
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#3
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Quote:
Anyway, once your kite is looping the outcome becomes uncertain. Most of us tend to hold on and try to work it out. Trouble is, it can't always be worked out, that is the kite stabilized. It is not uncommon in these cases for the Emergency Depowering of the kite to be disabled. If leader lines wrap bar ends, bridles wrap kite ends or bind in pulleys, or ???, all that depowering can vanish. Went through this myself only in December. Cutting out isn't all that certain either. At the speed Karolina is moving in the second video it seems unlikely she could manage to do much more than be dragged and periodically get yanked out of and across the water. The best approach assuming there is no one at risk downwind is to release the kite entirely, early. Several guys have been taken out by looping kites, some over 3 miles of dragging at high speed, some over far shorter distances. If you can't release the kite for whatever reason, hope you can cut out or something else breaks, someone catches the kite, etc.. Sometimes we get lucky, not always though. Avoid looping, there are lots of things that can cause it, some more obvious than others.
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FKA, Inc. transcribed by: Rick Iossi |
#4
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One explanation for what might have happened is: "If you click on Youtube in the bottom right corner of the video, you can see in the high quality version at Youtube, that Karolina was leashed suicide style to her chickenloop with a clip which could catch a steering line if she pulled one end of the bar near it. Then she seemed to have no way of releasing her handlepass leash if being pulled backwards. She has probably corrected those two mistakes now." and "I believe it's small kite 5-7m. Leash caught one of the steering lines. Wind speed? Doesn't look too windy, maybe 25knts..." http://www.kiteforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2357124 This is an example of a smaller, faster kite in stronger winds. Some of the more severe looping accidents have happened in high wind, approaching 40 mph +. In those cases the rider is yanked violently across the water in sudden power jerks as the kite cycles through loops. I once saw someone do this at Hobie probably eight years ago with a traditional C kite in around 20 to 24 mph. Despite the lower wind speed, he was still yarded about 10 to 15 ft. horizontally at high speed out of the water with each loop. In that case his wrist leash wrapped around the line winder on the far side of the bar. Good thing wrist leashes are out.
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FKA, Inc. transcribed by: Rick Iossi Last edited by ricki; 05-29-2009 at 08:22 AM. |
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dragged, looping kite |
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