Best Beach Wheels - Ambulance
Leave it to you to get pictures en route to the hospital. We want hot nurses and hot EMTs next time. Although, I've taken people to the hospital in KW, and I didn't see any. You could start a new thread on kiteforum, "Sexiest Bodily Injury Picture." Or "Guess the Kiteboarder." LOL
Frank |
jesus Rick did this just happen to you?
I need to show you the sand bag solo land/launch trick, it's really easy and works,,, and if it doesnt it just drags the sand bag down the beach. |
I self land all the time and to be honest, sometimes i trust it more than the people landing me!
I am a firm beliver do what you know and also at your skill level. I got into this sport to be solo, alone, not waiting on anyone. They are many safe ways to self land and launch. The best sugestion is to know your equipment, and if you dont ask the person you bought it from what works and how. Then the next test would be to activate your system so you know what to expect. As i am sure rick can tell ya, there is no time to do research when the shit hits the fan. Self landing is an advanced skill, which canchange on condtions, equipment and area. You can learn how to do it, but dont guess at it, practice in light winds after someone has SHOWN you. All kite gear is different, you are worse off onsome gear if you unhook for a self landing, and others because because because theyare a cross between a c and a bow. The answer is in what kite you have as they all dont act the same anymore like "c" kites did. be safe and glad ricks ok |
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http://www.kiteforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2346098 Actually, cell phone photos of kiting injuries have become pretty common on the net. If they carry a useful message, sounds good to me, otherwise keep them on your phone. Since you wanted a more appealing nurse photo, I came up with this Frank: http://www.fksa.org/albums/album22/10_G.sized.jpg I tried to get it to wear the nurse hat and get up but no go, it ate them, sorry. |
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For these and lots of other reasons, I have felt for a long time, it is a bad idea to try out a new, unfamiliar kite in strong conditions. Had I made yesterday's mistakes in strong conditions, good chance I would have been messed up big time. We were just talking about this last week. Input on this Marina? |
Good points, Paul and I felt the same way about assisted launches and landings with traditional C kites and 99 % were solo. Things became more complicated with flat kites though, at least on land. If you learn a technique that works with a given kite, go for it allowing for the odd error as we were talking about. Trouble can come when you start mixing techniques with new kites. I think I've owned about 8 flat kites of various brands and there are differences among them in solo landing. I still feel ALL kiters need to be comfortable solo landing in an emergency. Sadly, I think there is a fair number that never have bothered to learn. That is like driving a sports car but relying upon the guys in the backseat to be awake and put on the brakes when you need them to.
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One other point i should have brought up. Mishaps are 45% less likely to happen if you put the kite on the water or over it and kill it. Kite will stick to water, but will be static on the beach and also have no resistance and can then tumble and roll fast and end up who nows where. I will take the problems with landing, as they are fixable, rather than the days with no depower and people gettting draged, hurt and worse on a steady basis.
Again Rick, glad you are ok......where is the sport going when rick starts getting hurt.....? |
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Here's some more detail on what went wrong. The short version is, it was my first time out with a new kite with different performance aspects. I handled the kite in a way that I was used to but the kite was not! Outcome, Rick gets slammed, hate when that happens.
The Cabrinha Switchblade IDS has a purpose designed depowering function for solo landing and emergencies. Ignoring this function is not a great idea. It was blowing out of the SE about 12 to 18 mph, I had just landed a 12 m SB IDS on the surface of the beach. I did this by bringing it down to near the ground, reaching forward and pulling in the trim strap assembly. I had just unhooked the chicken loop at this point and had forgotten to detach my kite leash from the harness. For some reason the kite landed more downwind than crosswind this time and very near some sea oats and dunes. (I learned later that tensioning the trim strap assembly on this IDS equipped kite will cause it to fall back in the window, whoops). As I moved a few feet towards the kite, it started to drift downwind. I grabbed one of the back lines, pulled on it lightly to try to get the kite to stay in position. The kite started to loop, I dropped the back line but it continued to loop. I soon dropped the chicken loop thinking this would kill the power. Instead I was dragged by the kite leash about 100 ft. through the dunes. The kite never depowered despite my being pulled by the leash attached at the ring at the top of the chicken loop. By the time I thought to try to disconnect the leash attachment, which I was being dragged on, the trip of several seconds was about over. I wondered if something had snagged the lines on the ground but it seems I might have wrapped a wing tip with a bridle. I still don't know what caused the depowering function to fail but a wingtip wrap is seeming more likely as one wing tip was dragging on the ground around some sea oats. I never thought to activate the IDS upon landing, first big mistake and once I unhooked the chicken loop with the leash still attached (REAL big mistake), I effectively disabled the IDS. The likely wing tip wrap disabled normal flat kite depowering. Wisely having left the kite leash attached (NOT) and with the QR beneath me and the dune rushing by, I was committed for the trip. I was talked into going to the ER, was Xrayed, no breaks, just some messed up soft tissue. That was diagnosed today as two sprained ankles, a sprained neck and a displaced rib. The rib hurts more than the rest currently, ouch. Pretty light bill all things considered. I did this landing technique with no problems an hour and a half earlier. Probably because the wing tip didn't get wrapped. I did remember to detach the leash attachment that time. Not the second time when it really counted however. I had been off the water for about three months which likely contributed to what I did and didn't do. Moral: New kite system, carefully learn and practice the New Stuff, FIRST! Don't assume old techniques will necessarily work. I never used the IDS when I came ashore, if I had, none of this would have happened. There would have been no need to detach the kite leash either in this case. A hard won but fairly obvious lesson. |
Some of what I was doing and SHOULDN'T HAVE, appear at 35 sec. and 1 minute 3 sec. in the video
http://fksa.org/showthread.php?t=5678 I don't think this illustrated technique in the video is a good idea with IDS equipped kites. The video was shot using last years Switchblade. With this years kites, just fire off the IDS to solo land and all done, sigh. |
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