Fay
First of all, I am sorry to hear about Kevin and I hope and pray that he makes a full recovery and lives to kite again one day. I am a professional kiteboarding instructor for 6 years now, and having suffered through one of the worst windless summers in years, this accident is like pouring salt on an old wound that has never healed. I live in St. Augustine, and have kited a total of 45 minutes this entire summer due to an active monsoon season and unfavorable weather patterns.
I am currently on vacation visiting family and searching for wind up in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and saw the video of the Ft. Lauderdale lofting on the Weather Channel on JetBlue airlines flying up to Boston. I got an email from a friend in Washington about it later, so obviously this has become national news. My thoughts are with Kent in this matter in that this event greatly effects our industry, and we should be very conscious of it.
I echo other people's concerns that there were other people out that day, and their example led Kevin to decide it was a good idea to kite in dangerous conditions. Each of us needs to think about our decisions and how it affects others in this case. We all enjoy our sport 99.9% of the time in relatively safe conditions, well within the limits of our equipment. But it is that .1% of the time that we need to think about. I for one will be stressing safety release in all upcoming kiteboarding lessons this fall, with our windy season about to start in northeast Florida. Have you ever pulled your release? If you had to in a split second, would you be able to?
Paul Menta was the one who certified me to be an instructor, and he was always adamant about PRACTICING pulling your release, and even riding with your hand on the release in sketchy conditions. You simply CANNOT WAIT until the shit hits the fan to figure out how to work your safety release mechanism. It needs to be automatic, so that you know exactly what to do, and have the muscle memory programmed in case of emergency. Know your equipment, and how to use it.
That said, the best way to avoid accidents is not to put yourself in a bad situation in the first place. One of the major things that I stress in my lessons is for people to learn how to assess the conditions, and know when to go out, and when to go home. Marcus at 3-2-1 Takeoff in the Dominican Republic showed me how important it is to teach students to be able to check the weather conditions before they go out. Yes, it has been a very windless summer, but that doesn't mean you should go pump up a kite when 50 knot squalls are moving through at 60 mph. Do yourself a HUGE favor, and check the NWS/NOAA forecast, radar images, IKitesurf meters, and any/all weather indicators you can BEFORE you decide to pump up a kite and endanger yourself. Err on the side of safety, and live to kite another day.
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