another sketchy day at Hobie. West winds ranging from 6-20 knots...maybe gusts a bit higher.
the final count was 3 kites in the seaquarium wall. Each incident happened when the rider cut upwind too close to the wall and either botched a manuever or hit a lull. End result each time was kite in the water, and little distance to work with to relaunch or pull in for a self-rescue. Totally avoidable by staying farther upwind of the wall.
later in the day 3 riders were doing some freestyle very close to shore...airs, kite-loops etc... One rider on a foil kite stalled on the landing, tried to recover but was forced to release from the kite as a gust hit him. Kite went up, up and away, but snagged a palm and started looping and then crashed down hard in the parking lot. Not sure about injuries. Todd went down to check it out.
NOW, as if this wasn't enough. One of the original 3 riders who had witnessed the accident began pulling shoreside tricks again!
By this point I was pretty blown away by the lack of judgment, and decided to go down and take video. Judge for yourself, but to me this is as dumb as it gets for a clearly talented rider.
We keep asking why beginner/intermediate riders do stupid things, especially at Hobie? Well for me this is the answer....if our instructors, locals and overall experienced riders are doing stupid things, everybody else will follow their lead.
the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWduyZV3tHo
lets try to stop this before some kid/mother/grandmother/friend gets killed...if you see something stupid taking place, call them out.
~patrick