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The Safety Topic: please post your experience and advice!

Forum with lots of safety info - a must for newbees
sarc
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Re: The Safety Topic: please post your experience and advice!

Postby sarc » Mon Jun 25, 2018 4:03 am

Another video showing how to self-launch safely (unhooked)
Just search youtube for the video title shown on top left
Again, audio is in French, but you can just mute it if you want. Images are self-explanatory.
[img
Self launch unhooked.jpg
][/img]

Works in strong wind too (if you are getting dragged around the beach holding on the CL with your hands it's probably a good idea to let go, land kite to safety leash, and change down 3 sq m size. If not, go out and have fun!!)
sarc wrote:
Wed Dec 20, 2017 4:30 pm
This pro launches in the way I was describing in my video below. His video is much better, highly recommended! In French but video is self-explaining
https://youtu.be/acLl6BtJRkM
sarc wrote:
Mon May 22, 2017 10:20 am
Hello guys
many accidents occur at launch... just last week someone dies in San Francisco due to a launch gone wrong. In that thread I noted that if the person had launched unhooked he would still be with us today; I was asked to post a video of what I mean by unhooked launch, so there it is. Sorry for the poor video quality, I just hope that it brings the message across and make people aware of this approach to launching.
https://youtu.be/2QD3CzoojYI

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Re: The Safety Topic: please post your experience and advice!

Postby tkachuk » Tue Jun 26, 2018 10:35 pm

Maybe an unhooked launch would of prevented my recent deathloop up the beach. Intermediate kiter and I was doing an regular assisted launch with a 20 knot onshore steady wind. During launch, a large balled up knot, taking up 20cm or so of coiled line suddenly formed in the downwind steering line and launched me into the rocks. Why didnt I quick release? Because the whole incident took less than three seconds! My lines were clear and not crossed up prior to thumbs up but I failed to see the damn knot. Couldnt control the kite and it looped me three times across rocks and shells into some neighboring scrub. Ouch.

sarc
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Re: The Safety Topic: please post your experience and advice!

Postby sarc » Mon Jul 02, 2018 5:56 am

Deathloops on launch WILL happen in your kitesurfing career. it may be just a few bruises and a laugh, or a life in a wheelchair or worse. In my case it was a slight concussion and a broken rib... and I was wearing helmet and PFD. It was a perfectly normal launch like I have done 10,000 time before. Since then, I never launched hooked in again (that was a few years back...)

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Re: The Safety Topic: please post your experience and advice!

Postby shalyd » Wed Aug 08, 2018 1:57 pm

Just wondering why there is nothing new because its a really interesting topic ;)

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Re: The Safety Topic: please post your experience and advice!

Postby kite_hh » Mon Aug 13, 2018 10:20 pm

sarc wrote:
Mon Jul 02, 2018 5:56 am
Deathloops on launch WILL happen in your kitesurfing career. it may be just a few bruises and a laugh, or a life in a wheelchair or worse. In my case it was a slight concussion and a broken rib... and I was wearing helmet and PFD. It was a perfectly normal launch like I have done 10,000 time before. Since then, I never launched hooked in again (that was a few years back...)
It is quite hard to predict the future, but judging from my past experiences I am very confident deathloops at launch are not inevitable.

While a launch can certainly go wrong and may need to be aborted (be it before things go wrong or using the quick release), a deathloop at start to me seems to be a connection of several mistakes and, being the responsible kiter one should and can be, are not common nor inevitable.

Maybe you can share what went wrong in your scenario? You seem to be an experienced Kiter (10,000 starts) and a concussion and a broken rib really are serious injuries.

Personally I feel safe hooking in and carefully controlling the situation at launch, always mentally being prepared to hit that QR should anything go wrong.

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Re: The Safety Topic: please post your experience and advice!

Postby sarc » Tue Aug 14, 2018 1:48 am

kite_hh wrote:
Mon Aug 13, 2018 10:20 pm
sarc wrote:
Mon Jul 02, 2018 5:56 am
Deathloops on launch WILL happen in your kitesurfing career. it may be just a few bruises and a laugh, or a life in a wheelchair or worse. In my case it was a slight concussion and a broken rib... and I was wearing helmet and PFD. It was a perfectly normal launch like I have done 10,000 time before. Since then, I never launched hooked in again (that was a few years back...)
It is quite hard to predict the future, but judging from my past experiences I am very confident deathloops at launch are not inevitable.

While a launch can certainly go wrong and may need to be aborted (be it before things go wrong or using the quick release), a deathloop at start to me seems to be a connection of several mistakes and, being the responsible kiter one should and can be, are not common nor inevitable.

Maybe you can share what went wrong in your scenario? You seem to be an experienced Kiter (10,000 starts) and a concussion and a broken rib really are serious injuries.

Personally I feel safe hooking in and carefully controlling the situation at launch, always mentally being prepared to hit that QR should anything go wrong.
Hi Kite_hh
I remember I posted about it when it happened, you can search my name, but anyway I self-launched leading edge down and walking backwards as in my video, hooked in with my hand on the quick release. 30-35kn with 5m rebel. I was paying attention, looking at the kite, the lines, the launch area and not goofing around.
I probably had a line wrapped around the wing tip, maybe due to the line flapping in strong wind on the downwind tip (which I could not see). I say probably because I can't remember anything except a massive impact on the ground - maybe when I passed out I lost some memory, I don't know. I was my friends telling me what happened.
There has been another occasion around 2005 when I got lofted on launch by a massive gust + wind shift. I was told I was about 5m off the ground (enough to break my back if I land wrong) but fortunately back then I was on Peter Lynn Arcs and they were such well behaved kites, I had muscle memory to stall the kite to depower so instead of overflying and dropping me I floated gently back to ground.
Anyway I have been very happily only launching like in my (or the French pro) videos for the past few years with zero problems and zero worries, including 35kn+ wind. Now I really can't understand why people walk around the beach hooked in.

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Re: The Safety Topic: please post your experience and advice!

Postby kite_hh » Tue Aug 14, 2018 8:08 am

Sarc, that sounds terrifying! I am glad you came out relatively well and are able to enjoy kiting again!

By your description (and video) it seems you were/are doing a lot of dragged self launches. I have never done nor do I ever plan on doing a dragged self launch. I don't like my kite being pulled on the ground and there isn't really that much space to start where I kite either. I prefer assisted launches or for self-launch the ankered version and feel safe doing so.

So I would concur with you that a dragged launch is best done unhooked as you have shown, because there is a chance lines get tangled in the process.

Thanks for sharing!

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Re: The Safety Topic: please post your experience and advice!

Postby Jyoder » Wed Aug 15, 2018 12:30 am

I hardly ever get to kite in winds over 25 knots and I kite a lot since taking up foiling. Finally got a really strong day a few weeks ago. I had forgotten how stressful high wind launching and landing is, even with assist, and I was on my tiny 5.5m. The regular non-foiling wind speed to kite size and power ratio seems a bit extreme to me now that i’m spoiled by foiling.

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Re: The Safety Topic: please post your experience and advice!

Postby Sylvain D » Thu Oct 25, 2018 4:09 pm

Hi guys.

Here is a blog of mine about kitesurfing safety. To make it short, the safety systems available to kitesurfers when something goes wrong are not perfect.
The only way to make it safer is to make sure that nothing dangerous will happen, and you do that by doing some checks, before to send your kite in the air.

In this blog you will see all the checks you are supposed to do, and some easy ways to remember them, because it is very easy to forget one.

Have fun and ride safe.
Sylvain
https://kitesurfingdublin.com/kitesurfing-safety/
Kitesurfing safety blog.png

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Re: The Safety Topic: please post your experience and advice!

Postby podiatanapraia » Thu Nov 01, 2018 5:45 am

Hi everyone. I have a question, and if it's been answered here before, I apologize (but there's, like, 28 pages of experience to read through in this topic alone).

I was out today with a 14m kite in strong winds. Great for hangitme, but a lot of power to hold. At one point the kite hit the water during a kite loop and went into a strange twist and I was forced to use the quick release. I was then able to pull myself towards the kite, untwist the kite, let it drag back out away from me, pull myself towards the bar and reset the chicken loop. Once the safety line had run through again, the kite powered up pretty hard and I hurt my finger in the process. It was nothing serious, but it did get me thinking about something that could have been a lot worse. If I had had the safety line wrapped around any part of me, like a finger or a toe, it might have chopped it right off when the kite powered up.

My question is this: does anyone know of any technique that could be used to guarantee that the safety line won't be wrapped anywhere around you when you hook the chicken loop back in and allow the line to run back through the bar?

Appreciate any thoughts and experiences on the matter.
Last edited by podiatanapraia on Tue Nov 06, 2018 2:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.


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