Kiting regulation by Florida proposed

[ricki]

"Rick, have you heard any news of this?

Kite Jam

There is movement in the Florida Senate to regulate kiteboarding. The parasailing bill was amended to include kite surfing. I'm not sure if this would just means mandatory insurance or what other regulations will apply. This bill is pretty popular and is moving through..."

Yes, I saw a strange article about it earlier today. ( http://exm.nr/1ib8e1A )

At this time, reference to kiting in the TWO proposed bill amendments has been withdrawn. So, as far as kiters are concerned this is a non-issue, for now in the current wording of the bill.

Providing some background, I looked into it and called the office of Maria Sachs who introduced the bill into the senate about the situation. They said the application to kiting had been withdrawn with few other details offered.

I did some more digging and found the text of the two amendments files within the last few days with each being withdrawn. http://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2014/0320 specifically http://bit.ly/1oKVK0I and http://bit.ly/1eqvzaX The amendments were poorly written and considered on net. This may account for why they were so rapidly withdrawn. They were far over reaching in several areas, requiring non-inflatable PFD's, specifying hours of operation, rear view mirrors, a second observer on the board??? Obviously the authors had no idea of what kiting is, how it is conducted and physical constraints as to the number of people who can be on a kiteboard! Also, where are we supposed to mount the rear view mirror on our kiting setup, absurd!

Still, the citation of the 50 year old FAA FARs dealing with kites in proximity to airports is quite concerning in state legislation. I concluded they found this obscure FAR to provide some teeth in their effort to regulate parasaliing and to bring a Federal Agency into the fray, the FAA for Pete's sake. Parasailing needs serious reform and use of simple common sense and good seamenship, but the FAA?

I don't know why efforts were made to bring kiting into this mess and think we need to learn why it happened in the first place and through two amendments.

I hope we have heard the end of this but the situation bears close monitoring by kiting interests. A summary of things dealing with paragliding at the Capitol is at http://www.myfloridahouse.gov/Sectio...7&Session=2014

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[ricki]

I have learned more about SB 320 amendments and who and why proposed them. You can see it yourself in the Tourism and Commerce Committee meeting video from Monday at:

http://www.flsenate.gov/media/VideoP...804_2014031125

The overall discussion of the parasailing bill occurs between 30.43 and 43.20 minutes.

The amendment is discussed by Senator Detert of Sarasota County and parts of Charlotte County between 33.29 and 36.00 minutes. More about the Senator at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_C._Detert

The Senator wanted to extend enforcement power of the 51 year old and out of date, FAA FARs relating to kites and airports from the USCG alone which she stated was 40 miles away from the Sarasota Bradenton International Airport SRQ to local municipal police and county sheriffs offices and their marine units. She implied an unspecified "problem" with kiters launching in the "bay" within five miles of the airport and wanted to use this out of date FAR to prohibit kiting within five miles of this and all other airports within Florida. She indicated the amendment was "beneficial to all of Florida" given the abundance of coastal airports in the state. She further stated this move was supported by the Florida Airports Council (FAC).

She said the House bill sponsor did not agree to do the amendment and therefore she withdrew it. I am still unclear about the actual motivations for this amendment with the lack of apparent documented actual problems to my knowledge and am concerned it might pop up again. I view it as a serious threat to kiting access in Florida sad to say.

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[rpexj]

Rick this is very concerning. The very best riding and teaching in Sarasota Bay, New Pass Flats, is 4 miles from Sarasota International Airport. Some of the best gulf wave riding in the area is at the south Venice Jetty about 3 miles from the Venice Municipal Airport on Venice Island.

Westerly winds means gulf riding here and the airport is on the east side of the bay, so no one kites in Sarasota Bay any closer than 4 miles from SRQ. In addition, the launches on the east side near SRQ are all private property and full of oyster beds. A kite 25 meters high 4 miles from an airport holds the same relevance as a gnat on the runway.

BTW, all bay riding in Sarasota is done from boats. We have no beach launches anywhere, so all launching, riding, and teaching is done away from shore crowds and hazards.

The only thing I can think of that would generate an issue here is related to parasailing. We have several parasailing operators that will move from the gulf beaches to Sarasota Bay when the gulf gets too rough. They do seem to parasail on the eastern side of the bay near the airport. Considering the length of the line they reel out they can get considerable altitude.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention!

Rich Peck
KiteboardingSarasota.com

[atwkite]

This is a BIG issue, and has caused serious problems on Maui, shutting down some of the best riding area on the north shore adjacent to the airport.

While they were able to get an FAA exemption to prevent a total shut down of the north shore, they are constantly confronted with the threat of the exemption getting pulled.

Enforcement of the 5 mile restriction would shut down a ton of spots. My local launches of Stuart and Fort Pierce would be gone.

We may really want to get in front of this.

[ricki]

Someone is going to speak with the Senator to try to understand the motivations for this move. Speaking with local kiters, I have yet to identify a problem, actual, perceived or otherwise relative to the airport from what information I have found to date. You are right in that we need to get our hands around this situation. It could have made its way into law last Monday with the parasailing vote before we first heard about the overall situation the next day, Tuesday. Not a good state of affairs.

[atwkite]

It is amazing to me that you can land a parachute on airport grounds, but can't fly a kite that stays below 100 ft within 5 miles of an airport.

It makes me think we should address the regulation with the FAA on a national front. There must be some kiting attys that would be willing to take this on.