Pro-active approach to save our access.

[Steve-O]

Alot has been weighing on my mind lately about the future of our sport. It seems that we are constantly under fire not only here, around Florida, but everywhere. We have all been in a situation where someone is trying to handle a kite and they just don't know what they are doing. Many don't say anything in fear of confrontation, and some get right in there and preach lessons, and how damaging they are to themselves and others around them.

Our sport faces alot of problems, and there are no easy answers.

I would like to propose an idea that I have been brewing and it came to a head the other day in the shop. Had a fireman and his wife wanting to buy gear. Both John and I told him we wouldn't sell him anything until he got lessons. It was very confrontational as he just wasn't having it. He wanted a kite and felt the research he has done was sufficient. Long story short, I got so frustrated with this guys ignorance, that I basically turned him off and he walked out.

Bottom line is there are many like him. We have seen them out there, and there are more waiting in the wings. We can't stop it. This fireman is going to get gear, it just won't be from us. And if its not him, it will be someone else on another day.

So what's the point of this story.....we need to arm these folks that don't listen at least with info that might keep them out of trouble. It would be cool if we see guys/girls like this out there, or just plain interested in the sport to have something to give them that has a bunch of info on it. A letter, if you will, from the Tampa Bay kiteboarding community pleading the case of how important lessons and training is and that there actions are jeapordizing our access, their safety, and the safety of others. This letter will also contain important websites that already exist regarding launch locations, schools in the area, restrictions that exist, links to websites to inform newbs about kitesurfing, DVD instructional materials, and anything else you guys can think of to put on there.

I think you can share my frustration of confronting someone, not getting through, and then both parties walking away with nothing accomplished. At least arm them with the info and something to read and think about in a non-confrontational setting. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't, but I think we have to step up our approach to these folks that are ignorant and potentially dangerous. Maybe getting this info will send them on an exploration that might get them to realize how much actually goes into this and quite possible might change their mind to "do the right thing".

I envision a one page handout that we could put in a PDF format. Once all the info is there, it could be a sticky on the forum for any of us to access and make copies to keep in the car. Someone inquires about the sport, give them a copy. You see someone that clearly doesn't know what they are doing, have a chat and then give them a copy.

Think about it, you can preach lessons till your blue in the face, but if they have in there mind that there just not taking them, then you have accomplished nothing. At least with this letter, you can give them some tools that just might keep them a little more out of trouble than they would have been without the info. Keep them confined to areas that won't effect our access as much.


Ok, enough from me. What do you think????

Looking forward to your thoughts, feedback, suggestions, and criticisms.

Sincerely,
Steve-O

[conchxpress]

It's hard to believe that your customer was a fireman. His profession depends on rigorous training, with ingrained safety mechanisms, so as to protect the lives of the public and his compatriots. He didn't get to where he is by going out and buying a hose and an axe, setting an occupied building on fire, and then charging in to see if he could save the day because he watched "Backdraft" a couple of times. Maybe he's one of the ones that would endanger himself and other people in any situation. It doesn't sound like he has the typical fireman mindset. Thinking back on my own first few lessons and getting t-bagged all over the place, I can't fathom the naivete of some people thinking they can just buy the gear and learn by trial and error, with a little help from You-tube. Maybe firefighting either produces very large cohones, or chronic smoke inhalation dulls the senses. At any rate, I think that your suggestions have a lot of merit. It's a tough thing to do, to discourage people from buying gear, when selling equipment is your livelihood. Like you said, he can really just get it anywhere, especially on the internet.
What occurs to me, is that the people that buy the gear without lessons must have an accomplice somewhere - most likely a friend that kiteboards and has told them "I can teach you. You don't need those expensive lessons". The friends are the real ones with the lack of sense. I've seen this happen a couple of times, and the "experienced" ones are often without a clue themselves. I'm sure there are accomplished riders out there who teach friends, but you don't notice them because they do it within the confines of accepted safe practices.

[Whitey]

If your going to put together a one page hand out, I think is should be short and to the point.

Starting out with a statement with this flyer the person has been advised to get proper training before attempting this sport. It is written on the leading edge or manual of every kite.

If after getting this flyer, should you decide to ignore it, and proceed with out proper training, you have been advised, can no longer claim to be unaware of the risks and have made the decision to jepordize other people and property, and will accecpt the risk and damages resulting from that decision.

Now that they have been given this they can not say that they did not know, or were stupid, and it was an accident. It is their choice to risk others well being.

Show photo of what lines crossing a neck look like. & 100' lofting.

Advise them to get with their insurance agent to protect thier assests, as they will need it to keep from loosing their house, cars boats, 401k, etc. etc.

Then finish it up with even if they are luckey enough to make it thru the process with out hurting anyone they are going to piss off all the folks that are out there around them kiting who have done it the reasponsible way, by jepordizing their access with their selfish decision.

[Unimog Bob]

I sort of hear you about the lessons. But imo, the largest threat to access is guys that already know how to ride but decide to ride in an irresponsible fashion. When you do read about stuff going on, usually good riders are mentioned, not total newbs. Kevin K knew how to ride. I haven't seen a news clip with a non-kiter getting hurt or read in the news about a total newb getting whacked.

I can tell people face to face that lessons are step number one and riding w/o them is dangerous (and I do). I rarely see people "just trying" kiting. I guess if large numbers of people did, fliers would make more sense (canvas the beach). If I do see a guy rigging an Ebay kite and can't talk him out of it face to face, I can't see how a flier is going to help. Is he literally going to say "oh.. the flier says so... okay, I won't fly today" -- ?
Did you hand Mr. Fireman a flier? (get my point)

As is, I guess I am actually seeing the flyer idea as a promotion idea (possibly leading to more kiters... and more possible problems). That's not making sense to me as a pro-active way to protect access. Again, if I saw people trying to kite without lessons, (which I don't) I would talk to them.
If they refused to stop, a cop would be my go-to, not a flier.

As stated, I feel uneducated people buying and trying Ebay kites isn't the primary problem. I can't remember the last time I saw a totally clueless guy at the beach setting up a kite. However, within the last 2 weeks I have seen 3 guys (good riders) riding like morons within the swim areas. That's by far the larger problem.
In terms of the experienced riders riding "poorly", we have had tons of talks on here in the past. I gave up on confronting experienced riders personally and on here about 2 years ago. It wasn't getting anywhere and was just causing hardship for me. People either ride responsibly or they don't.

Instead of confronting, I decided to use some of my computer skills to set up wikis, forums and stuff here locally. I was hoping that the local community (especially the instructors) would hop on the Wiki and add sections, info about local riding spots, safety.. you name it. Maybe it would help, I hoped.
With exception of Steve S and a little help from Sammy, no one added an ounce of info to it.
The Wiki is still there and waiting for info to be uploaded.

http://www.tbka.org/TBKAWiki/index.p...e=Welcome_Page

New sections about safety gear, weather patterns, whatever you want.
As was the original agreement for posting to the site, whoever does add info is more than welcome to include a link to their site of business. The information should be just that, not an ad. But, feel free to link to your website.


Here is an example of an Elgg site.
http://www.scottfears.com/elgg/elgg1.5/

This type of approach could be used for sharing information of all sorts (podcasts, vids, PDFs) regarding safety, local launches, etc. There are tons of free platforms out there these days to be used. I feel this one is the most under-rated, which is why I showed it instead of Joomla, which many of you probably already know of.

[jetpack]

I think a PDf is a fine idea. At leasts it's something. I've been only involved with this awesome recreation for a couple of months but already I've developed a keen sense I might have arrived to the party a day late.

Is it odd I feel that loud, obnoxious water-craft, spewing out water & air pollution, burning up dead dinosaurs, seem to have more access to the beaches and water then we do? It's not a good feeling. I hope I'm wrong.

A wise sage once said, "Stupid is as stupid does".

We are responsible for our own actions. We will reep what we sow in this recreation. Do something stupid, like I and others saw at Sunset the other day & we can expect nothing less than to lose another launch site.

Side story

"I should have said something". I'm mad as all heck that I didn't say something. Andrea saw it, she knew it, I knew it too. Tuesday a father and son team pull their car up on the sand at Sunset. Orange kite.

About 4-5 other kiters are setting up. I'm shutting down and just watching. They seem to be in a race setting up as fast as they can. They are attaching lines while the kite is upside down after it was inflated and not secured. Twice I saw the wind pick up the kite and father had hold onto it from going downwind while he attached lines. Did he not want to take the effort to flip it?

Then while others are setting up to launch (this really pissed me off) they didn't bother to launch from the waters edge like every one had been doing. The wind was WNW and on the edge of weak to OK. Did the poor kid not want to get wet?

So with the kite at the top of beach and the kid at the waters edge, the father is holding up the kite. Lines going across other lines and worst of all this is just upwind of the mangroves, me, Andrea, Hameed and some tourists next to the mangroves. Andrea and I look at each other shaking our head, she says to me, "This is why we are going to lose Sunset someday".

I had launched my 15m earlier and it was just able to get up, but it was right on the edge. It could have easily "back up" and go downwind before it was flying. So here we have these people rushing and launching their kite across peoples lines, upwind of people, in a low-wind state, creating a dangerous situation.

All it would take for this kite to come downwind crashing lines and itself into people, kiters and the mangroves was the wind to calm then pick up. Which it had been doing. A simple walk to the waters edge would have avoided this scenario.

Being the noob to the area, I said nothing. Man was I pissed about it the next day when I talked with Brian and Steve-O. I'm a pilot and I asked Steve-O where he thought most accidents take place. 95% of airplane accidents happen during either taking off or landing. They happen in blue skies when things are not expected to go wrong. That's where the mistake lies. This was just that scenario. Just insert a big a$$ kite.

Now we all know there is a difference between being naive, being inexperienced and knowing better. I know I'll do something in the future not so smart. But I'll learn from it and strive not to repeat it.

I soon learned this is a re-occuring theme. Next time, Ill say something. To the father and son team - That was "stupid is as stupid does". I'm not gonna walk away next time wishing I had said something.



End of side story

Being proactive, not reactive. It's the only thing that helps. We learn this too late in life and then regret follows.

Steve-O, I though about your fireman story from the other day. No doubt an accident looking for a spot to happen. Here's my take on where he's coming from.

It might have something to do with the fact that he is a fireman. HUH!? Here's what I mean. I'm sure he has gone through some of the training like myself (pilot). Checklists, saftey gear, re-occuring checks, evaluations. etc... So here we have a guy looking to get onto the water and have a little fun. The last thing he wants is more lessons, more of someone showing him what to do. He deals with it all day. I'm not defending him. Just saying that's a possible angle that he's coming from.

Me on the other hand, I'm chickin little. I'll listen to instruction all day long.

[Unimog Bob]

Jetpack,

In terms of jetskis and access. Up north is probably different. Along the St. Pete beaches, jet skis are not allowed in the swim areas and not allowed to beach themselves (except at rental sites). Kiters, on the other hand, can go wherever they want. I hope we maintain as much access as we have now.
It is because of the disparity b/n jet ski and kiter access privileges that I worry about our access being limited in the future. I am actually very surprised that SPB hasn't insisted that kiters follow the same rules that the jet skiers follow. I don't want them to, just surprised. Many of us just want to maintain access... that's good

The problem is (think about jet skis for a moment... what came to mind!!??)

a few bad apples stick out in people's minds when it comes to impressions. Given that, maintaining access can be a tricky scenario.

[greg meintjes]

Reading the posts , I agree with the majority of what you guys are saying, and it looks like , at least you are aware of the problems that could arise in your area. My Hat,s off to you Steve O , for not selling that guy a kite, yesterday I had a similiar situation, I have a Thruster up for sale and I got a call from a guy in California wanting to buy it, the way he was talking ,it took me less than a minute to realise this guy had never kited before , after confirming this with him, I told him that the Thruster is not a beginner kite and that I would not sell it to him anyway and that what he should do is contact a local school and do lessons . After talking to him about the sport for a while he agreed and we said our goodby,s. An hour later the guy calls back (called me again by accident) and asks about a kite I am selling as he want,s to buy one. Point is some people will just not listen even though they agree with you.

Unmog Bob, you are also very right, a lot off problems that arise are from the good riders and the pro,s out there that are too good to follow safe kiting practices and set an example, there main focus is to be the center of attention, and who cares about the consequences , even though most of these guys are top riders, the newbie that is impressed and tries to imitate them is the one who is going to crash into an object or person , and ruin it for us.

Go big, but be responsible and set the example