[ricki]

I received a PM from a rider who was also able to put his hook knife to good use:

"kite knife came in handy for me once. cold water, 7m kite, xmas day. dropped kite in water, before i relaunched, got caught on a crabpot float. as it launched, the float was in the lines and slid all the way down the lines to the bar. it was all covered in seaweed and barnacles, and i was wearing gloves. i figured i would pull it off, but it was tough. almost instantly i started getting pulled underwater b/c the downwind pull of the kite at noon was thus pulling the crab pot line downwind (since it was attached to me), and therefore (draw the line diagram to understand) pulling me 2-3 feet underwater and drowning me! since there were swells i was able to grab a breath in a trough and then hold it while i detached myself from everything. very scary. t hen my kite was flying off the float.... i had to cut if off with the knife and self rescue. so the knife didn't save the life, but let me get my kite back. surprisingly scary situation however."

There was another case in which a kiteboarder was riding near a bridge in the Florida Keys. He dropped his kite to the water while the strong tidal current carried things beneath the bridge. His lines wrapped on a snag on a piling underwater as the current loaded his kite up and pulled it downcurrent. The rider became tangled in his lines. As a result the kiter was pulled underwater and kept there. This was a few years ago and he wasn't carrying a knife. If a nearby fisherman hadn't noticed what happened and jumped in with a fillet knife our rider might have easily drownd.