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Belated thanks to kiting friends- Altona

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Created by bfg > 9 months ago, 9 Jan 2016
bfg
89 posts
9 Jan 2016 11:07AM
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Story follows :

Just wanted to express gratitude to a couple of blokes that helped me out of a potential scary situation a couple of days ago at Altona.

Tide was all the way in and on the turn, wind was SSW blowing a really nice and steady 18-20 kt and I had just launched and was making my first tack out the back into the wavy section in the middle when my depower rope snapped and kite started to do the old death spiral.

Safety was rendered useless and I was considering releasing the secondary but after all the recent posts didn't want to lose the kite in the trees/powerlines...plus as I was a long way out thought even if I have only partial control (kite was on the water and inverted then sometimes flipping up and spinning some more) then at least I can get dragged back to the beach and hope someone can assist with landing (asking a non kiter is not a preferred option but maybe better than letting the kite blow across the road /into a tree etc).

Couldn't enact proper self rescue technique as winding up the lines was too hard with the kite spinning mostly out of control.

I had to let my brand new board go because holding onto both it and the kite was not an option.

Fortunately...and relying on luck is not the right thing to do...I was able to get a beach walker's assistance to grab the kite and make it safe. Thanks very much to the gent who helped save my kite.

Then I had to go look for my board.

A couple of kiters had seen my predicament and came over to offer to help. One guy on an Envy 10m spent at least 15 minutes looking for my board where I said I thought it would be. This is on a day where the wind was blowing and lots of fun was there to be had. Thanks so much for the effort mate. If you see this please come up and say Hi because I'd like to buy you some beers.

Luckily Dennis (kiting mate) knew the prevailing currents and found my board a few hundred metres up towards the pier. Thanks mate you are an absolute legend as that board and me have only started to get to know each other and I was really liking it a lot.

Lessons learned - check equipment better before a session, have a line knife handy if things go to s**t, fellow kiters are by and large some of the greatest people on the planet.


TSmith
VIC, 35 posts
9 Jan 2016 2:31PM
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Glad it all worked out in the end. Quite unfortunate it was the depower line that snapped.

i lost my board last Sat about 500m up past apex towards point cook, tried to get to it for about 30 minutes and just couldn't get there without anything on my feet. I gave up and tried to wave someone down for another 10 minutes. I was about to walk back then i saw a flash in the shallows about 200m up and realised my board had washed in, I was quite stoked. Though it would have give me a good excuse to get an early birthday present.

axion
VIC, 144 posts
9 Jan 2016 7:18PM
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Hey mate,

Glad everything worked out for the best. (I was riding the envy helping search for your board, names Justin).

Hope to see you out again under better circumstances and for sure would enjoy sharing a cold one with you afterwards.

Catch you on the water.

antlanglands
WA, 67 posts
10 Jan 2016 9:41PM
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Just a quick note Bfg , if youve eva got a kite deathlooping again you can stop it by stalling the kite.
To stall it , pull hard on the opposite steering line hand over hand till the kite gets killed because both of the steering lines are now too short to let it fly.
To know which line to pull , just grab the opposite steering line to the way the kite is looping
Its the same way landkiters land a foil by dropping back down thru the middle of the window by pulling both steering lines until the kite back stalls.
Glad it wasnt too much of a mare and neither you or your gear got trashed :)



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"Belated thanks to kiting friends- Altona" started by bfg