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Old 01-10-2008, 07:28 AM
Whitey Whitey is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 263
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That sounds like a great adventure. If you go you might be able to use a rig we came up with to make changing from kiter to boat driver at sea much safer and easier on people and gear.

We rigged up a 50' 1/2" anchor line looped to cleat on boat at one end and a large #3 brass clip on the other, a water ski solomn boey about 2' short of the end with the clip. We kept the rig hooked to the boat at all times and coiled up at the dirvers feet. When the kiter wants to come to the boat, the boat diver swings by and throws the line, the kiter hooks the big clip to his chicken loop and lets the kite sit on the water (either on it's edge or face down) then un hook your harness from the CL roll to your belly with board on your feet and knees bent up so board is out of water and pull yourself to the boat on the line, Once to boat hand board to driver and you climb in, you pull the anchor line with kite to you. Once you have the CL flag the kite by pulling in a couple of feet of the front lines first and one guy pulls in the kite lines while the other wraps them up on the bar. When you get to the kite grab the front portion of bridle or leading edge and bring kite into boat upside down like you would carry it on the beach. We have done this dozens and dozens of times in all kinds of conditions it works really well.

Would suggest that you do a practice run of this before the trip so that everyone is up to speed as to how it works. Once they see it done everyone will be very comfortable with it.

Mistakes we have made that you don't have to:

Don't let go of the line on your way to the boat as the combination of current and wind may leave you in the water and the boat driver unable to come get you utill he has brought your kite in by himself (not fun).

Leave one motor running so if needed you can bump it into gear to off set currnet and keep tension on the kite while pulling it in.

If the current and wind are such that you can turn off the motors while bringing the kite in after shutting down the motors drop them in gear. This keeps the props from freewheeling in the current and elimitates the possibilty of them picking up a loose line and spinning it up into the prop (not fun).

If conditions allow walk the anchorline up to the bow and pull the kite up to the bow and work on the fore deck. We found really works great with one motor left in reverse just to keep tension in the rig.

Disclaimer we have only done this with bow kites that behave when being held by the chicken loop with the bar out. C kite would require pulling in a few feet of the fifth line to flag kite or hooking the clip directly to the safety leash point of the fifth line prior to going to the boat.

If you are just switching from driving the boat to kiter. Same procedure just when the first kiter gets to boat the new kiter jumps in with board (holding onto line) follows line to CL, hooks into it, unhooks clip from CL after hooking the CL to your harness, water relaunch and off you go. Kite rig was never near the boat.
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