VIDEO: Jon Modica Demonstrates A Novel Solo Landing Technique For SB III Kites

[ricki]

Tom, I am not recommending anything. I am telling people about something novel that I saw. If they want to try it I am advising substantial cautions and to tell us how things went. If they don't want to try it, don't, simple.

You are questioning the validity of the wind report from ikitesurf, fine. One thing I would strongly advise you not to ignore, is that this will not work equally well with all kites.

Do not expect to have light enough line pressures to be able to relaunch as Jon did with all kites out there. If you drop the kite down and it bounces much, you probably will have too much line tension to easily do this with. This is the case with some of my current kites. I don't have any new Cabrinha kites, haven't tried it with any of the old first generation BOWs that I do have. My Waroo bounces quite a bit, the Waroo Pro may be more quiet, need to check it out more. I would not try the relaunch technique either unless the kite is very quiet with minimal line pressure. That is where the warnings about nasty injuries come in which could happen if things go really wrong. NONE of the manufacturers that I know about describe or recommend this procedure, it seems to be both new and novel. Their kites weren't designed with this aspect in mind after all, so have a care.

I don't like to use the spin the kite landing technique with any of my current kites except in very light winds. Too many ruptured leading edges have been caused by doing this over almost the last decade.