STORM RIDERS

[ricki]

There was a large gap between squall lines and feeder bands on color radar and satellite imagery today so it looked OK to go kiteboarding. The realtime winds were fairly steady in the area as well. I went out in the morning and came in around 2 pm. The account above describes some powerful squalls that came through later on. Some photos from the morning follow from Delray:


Some nice surf was running.








Stacy from Best gets ready to head out.











It wasn't all fun and games however. The conditions were fairly challenging with strong gusts, extended lulls and a lot of ragged, large irregular surf to try to pile through. I missed seeing the accident but I understand one very experienced rider dropped his kite on the water, a wave may have washed him into his lines and his kite, a 5 m, relaunched. I understand his ankle was broken as a result. At least it wasn't severely cut which can happen.

Hurricane riding has its risks, ranging from TOO MANY with squalls to a higher level of hazard than normal sessions even with weather planning, monitoring, safety gear, careful kite size selection, etc..