Police The Beach
 

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I popped some guys deflate valve on his 9m best at East Beach yesterday. He didn't have a harness on and was trying to hot launch right on the shore line at the eastern tip of the beach. He crashed a couple times and got dragged on the beach and all that good stuff. I've seen a bunch of pretty sketchy things this year both by instructors, riders, and self teaching kooks. As a community, people need to approach others who are obviously not following the local norms and inform them that a certified lesson needs to be taken or they need to stop trying immediately. Same goes for instructors, if an instructor is not significantly upwind or preferably downwind they should be approached as well. Myself included. And lastly east beach is huge and instructors do their best to teach away from the masses. Stop riding directly downwind and next to lessons. If the lesson is in the middle of the riding zone say something, but if they've made an effort to go out far, tack back and stay away.

Keep our scene cool, fun, and problem free. If you see something going down that looks bad stand up and say something, the tampa bay area undoubtedly has the most kiters in Florida now, and arguably the fewest regulations, police the beach and speak your mind and it will stay that way, sit back and let people make stupid decisions and we're all screwed. On a side note Mad props to people like Steve Saddler, the TBKA crew and mike hall for their beach cleanups and charity work, its great for everyone in the kite community and I hope to organize some equally beneficial events in the year to come!


Lastly if you feel like a road trip come out to our 1st collegiate stop this weekend, it will be in jax beach saturday and sunday, forecast looks killer!

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and this guy just let you pop his valve, I take it you just uncapped it? did you approach him kindly before popping his kite?

Approach him kindly? As it hotlaunched and took out everything downwind of him with either (1)the kite (best case) or (2)the lines (which would either hurt someone or wrap around a limb and drag them out of control downwind of him, or (3)the carbon or aluminum bar dragging behind the runaway kite took out someone going mach 10? I think he did the right thing.

I have seen too many people hurt by MUCH less stupidity. Not wearing a HARNESS??? C'mon now...it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the potential danger there...at ANY second. Good job Matt. If someone is doing something with that little concern for the other riders and onlookers, then they shouldn't be out there in the first place.

thats correct

Mildy extreme circumstances call for mildy extreme measure. Lets just be clear, by "pop" Matt means he pulled the valve to let the air out. I don't want to speak for Matt or anyone else but destruction of personel property is not the way to go, he simply deflated the kite.

Good job Matt for takin care of business! (but correct me if I am wrong)

I agree.Well handled

Every situation is different as are responses in detail. The more support someone trying to address a problem kiter has at the beach, the better. I would hope Matt had a bunch of kiters along for company to emphasize the message. Use lots of tact but be effective too. In the end, we need to protect bystanders and our sport. Not everyone appreciates that, often starting with the problem kiter. Full sized kite up, no harness, no kite control and people all around, sigh. Well done Matt.

kudos to you man
 

we have kooks at siesta key all the time, especially "in-season"

typically they just bought a kite, just flew into town, are here to party and don't give a rip

we've had to do pretty much the same thing

props to you!

OS/srq

wish i coulda been there. Keep up the good work Matt!