VANCOUVER ISLAND WINDTALK

Jens, a novice kitesurfer in Parksville, had an accident today at Columbia while launching. I talked to Jens tonight and he asked me to post this.

He was lofted in the parking lot and landed on the logs injuring his hip, rib and heel.

He launched a 13m kite assisted and unhooked, then started getting dragged and couldn't depower the kite (being unhooked). As he tried to hook in to depower the kite he was lofted.

He had x-rays and thankfully nothing is broken, just the rib might have separated from the cartillidge.

He says he's spooked but too hooked not to get back on the horse.

We're talking about safe launching techniques for that beach and he might be out tomorrow a.m. to check us out ..

Glad to hear everything is still in one piece. I have had some pretty close calls over the past couple years, the scariest this summer with another kiter out at cook st.. You really get checked into reality when something like that happens. Lots of power is required to lift 200 lbs 30 ft in the air in 1 second, imagine if that energy was trasfered laterally!

Stay safe!

Punch out ?!

This is in no way meant to be taken as a negative comment. Just curious, sounds like he was doing things right as far as launching unhooked so why when he started to get pulled did he not just drop the bar and go onto the safety? Is that not the whole reason for launching unhooked? Just wondering why he held on.

Yes, you described the right reaction.

I'm not sure that launching unhooked is safer but would like other comments. It vastly increases the chances of being overpowered and in gusty winds seems like just asking for trouble. You may not hurt yourself but you could seriously hurt your launcher or by-stander, or just tear off thier ear.

Dropping the bar on land seems not that great.

With a good depowering kite I now wouldn't consider launching unhooked, but I will make sure I am as close to the water as possible.

Comments ?

Close to water is not very helpful if your kite is launchinng towards the land. The action of trying to hook in would have caused the kite to power up even more. Luckily it is one of those learning exsperiences where not too much harm was done. Comes back to the fact that we should all probably be wearing helmuts. I know that Kiter Cliff's accident at Nitnat caused me to go and buy a new one. It was stupid of me not to wear one, as my old one really saved me at IV when I hit the sign and then got wrapped up in the power lines.

Jens, hope you get on the water soon

Hey,

Remember when launching unhooked to depower your kite. Alot of beginners make this mistake thinking its safer to launch unhooked and don't realize the kite is powered up.
In gusty conditions try to launch with kite towards the water, have someone hold your harness, keep it low and get away from shore quickly.


Don

I never understand this mentality. LET GO OF THE BAR! A kite is replacable, your life is not. This is the purpose of launching unhooked...if somethinig goes wrong you don't have to pull a release, just LET GO.

Logically you are correct. However, instinct and the thought of losing your equipment usually causes you to hang on that split seacond too long, and then you are toast. As anyone can testify who has been in that situation, it happens way too fast. one way of avoiding an accident is to think through what you would do if something goes wrong during a launch. Of course, this only works if you do it before something goes wrong.

Thankfully my stupidity moment only cause me a few scratches. I'm still learning too, and I got to suffer the abuse of flying with a 2 liner for a while (no depower, clipped in or not). I was dicking with my board or something, let my kite drift down, then it powered up and dragged me over the beach (thankfully, low tide at IV, so just a few rocks). Probably my helmet and lifejacket helped me in not sustaining much damage as well.
When I moved to 4 line and first launched clipped in and depowered, I though back to launching fully powered unclipped with my 2 lines and I though I must have been NUTS! I've done a few sketchier launches since (in that stupid swirly wind hole by the creek at Gordons, and in some squirelly wind at IV), and I've felt much safer having the depower available, even knowing I have 'one more thing' to do to release, than being fully powered and unclipped.
I go for launching clipped in now - I feel safe enough with the punch out that it will release if I choose to bail, and it gives me the added bonus of depower, which is significant I think. Part of that probably comes from activating the punch out just for practice every couple of sessions.
Along the lines of what others have said, I was taught the practise when I moved up to 4 line that when I set up, I layed out lines, ran all 4 to check for knots/tangle, make sure sheeting is fully depowered, then attach to kite. I usually also set my sheeting to full depower when I wrap my lines up, just to be sure I'm launching depowered.
I'd agree that I'd proabably delay releasing because of thoughs of loosing gear too, as irrational as those thoughs are in retrospect.

PS maybe someone should design a bar that is full depower when unclipped.. I though about it a little to no avail, but I think it could be nice... That's the only thing that doesn't seem perfect to me with any release - you're proabably releasing to try and gain control, but usually when you pull a release it dumps full power on you...

well, being a total newbie that's precisely the part I had a hard time computing....

you are less powered if hooked in but you are to launch unhooked.....

you should launch toward the water but usually have to launch toward shore, logs, powerlines

you don't have time to let go of the bar sometimes but you do to punch out or pull the release.....hmmm Did I miss something here?

the whole kiting thing sounds like my motorcycle examiner: "There are only three kinds of riders: those have have fallen, those who will fall and those who will fall again" I stopped riding a motorbike even though I really miss it a lot....too many close calls and not enough good judgment/skill sometimes...I wonder what possessed me to buy a kite with this aspect being so half-baked I guess super extra caution chanting release mantras so you know what to do when lofted is the only real approach

That's another thing.. if you get super lofted, do you want to be clipped in so you don't drop 50 feet, or you want to be unclipped so that hopefully the bar gets ripped out of your hand (but then you fall off cause you can't hold on anymore once you're 50 feet up...)

Follow this link: http://kitesurfingschool.org/chickenloop.htm

this is a discussion and solution to your questions about being depowered while unhooked.

What about the new BOW style kites and bars - the Cabrinha (?) ads claim to show full depower if you drop the bar, still clipped in. It seems to work in the circumstances they show, but would it still if the kite had Hindenberged then re-powered in a gust?
Still waiting to try......

Good point MF4. BOW kites will help. Check out the powered up 'Hot' launches in this video: http://www.windwing.com/images/videos/R ... essive.mov