Leaving lines attached when packing away

[WildDuke]

Toby brought up an interesting point in his thread relating to pet peeves, and that was leaving lines attached to the kite when packing away. I only have one kite and one bar and I remove the lines every time, basically because I have never come across anyone who doesn't. Does anybody else do this? It certainly makes sense!

[southflorida]

I see people who do this - pack without disconnecting. My fear is passing the bar over a line which will mess them up. Every time I've tried, and I was super careful, I managed to mess them up. Clearly not careful enough.

Anyone experienced in doing this have pointers? Would like to hear from you. Thanks.

[Clew In]

Hey,

Fold the kite in Half First with the bridal on inside of fold and then roll bar up with the kite. The same way you would do for a boat launch. There was a Kiteforum TV video that Nico did a segment on boat launching. Maybe someone can find it.

I do not like the idea of keeping it rolled up in the kite. I want it loose to rinse the salt water off.

Clew In

[lukeskiteboarding]

Keep em connected.
-Wrap up the bar and leave around 10 feet of line off the bar and secure the lines with the bungees.
-Deflate the kite and lay the bar on the center strut just below the leading edge
-Hook the chicken loop to the pump leash attachment on the kite. Use the donkey dic to secure the loop over the leash hook up on the kite.
-Roll up the kite

When you go for the next session just run the lines down wind of the kite and be sure they are not tangled.

[BWD]

The problem is if you never unhook the lines, almost inevitably at some point,
you are going to have the danger of an unattended kite sitting on the ground, pumped up with lines attached.
Normally when you land a kite, the first thing to do after unhooking your leash is to unhook the lines from the kite. That's important to make it safe for the rider, the kite, and everyone else around.
If you don't do that and anything happens before the kite is rolled up, it's dangerous.
The kite could load up and really start to tumble or fly if the bar and lines are attached, and the scenarios deteriorate from there.
I've seen it happen and it can get ugly, only takes one second for the kite to flip around if anything snags a line or there is a weird wind gust....
So except for special situations like boat launching,
normally I wouldn't leave the lines on.
But if you have to leave them on for some reason, wrap the lines up and secure the bar as lukeskiteboarding says above.

[edt]

I see people who do this - pack without disconnecting. My fear is passing the bar over a line which will mess them up.

Pass the bar through the center lines to undo the inside out lines. I usually end up with 2 or 3 twists in my bar, but it only takes about 10 seconds to figure out which way to pass the bar and fix it.

If you're not using the kite, you should wrap the lines up. I'm not sure what packing the kite with or without the bar has to do with problem of kiters leaving their kites out with the lines all over the place while they take a lunch break.

I have two bars and four kites, but I'm awfully lazy, so every time I set up my kite, I have to dig through everything and try to remember which kite has the bar I want to use. Prolly be quicker to remove the bar every time but when I'm packing up I just don't want to bother.

[dyyylan]

Toby brought up an interesting point in his thread relating to pet peeves, and that was leaving lines attached to the kite when packing away. I only have one kite and one bar and I remove the lines every time, basically because I have never come across anyone who doesn't. Does anybody else do this? It certainly makes sense!

Because it only takes about 20 seconds to attach your lines

[Kamikuza]

Doesn't matter if you loop lines around anywhere - it becomes painfully obvious when you go to wind the lines out. Simply reverse what you did. Paying a bit of attention when packing up and unpacking have reduced the occurrences to zero

What I do with the FSers ...
Land the kite and walk the lines around so they and the kite are laid out as if ready to launch then warp the lines up.
Secure them around the bar with a hitch type knot just before the bridles - never use the bungies cos they fall off when I throw the bar over to the leading edge.
Bridles in the kite, roll it up, pack it into the bag... with the difference that, unlike the Gunnar video, I don't wrap the bar in the kite cos mine is always wet and covered in sand!
With the kite in the bag, the bar in the outside pocket, it can dry out and shed the sand before I get back to the clubhouse where I can either throw it in the car, or rinse it off and then put the bar in my wet gear bucket ... then dry it off at home.

The problem is if you never unhook the lines, almost inevitably at some point,
you are going to have the danger of an unattended kite sitting on the ground, pumped up with lines attached.

Interesting point, I never thought of that. I always wind my lines onto the bar so I don't take up more space than necessary on our crowded beach (my pet peeve) and don't risk people launching with their lines tangled around mine (seen it too many times) but if my kite got lofted, I bet the bungies would give out and send the bar flailing around anyway.
Thanks, I learned something

[ronnie]

I have a spot where I like to anchor launch from a submerged rock. I have found the anchor rope cut and removed before, so I like to have the kite ready to either anchor launch or drift launch. The sand has stones and broken shells in it so I prefer to launch in the water.

With the IDS Xbow, I can pull down the centrelines to make the kite drop to one side and flip over to the parked position on shallow water.
Then, holding the bottom of the front lines at the centre of the bar, I fold over one rear line to the centre and wrap the doubled-over centrelines around that side of the bar. Then I wrap all 4 lines in a figure 8 as usual onto the bar and tie a couple of half-hitches when I get to the bridle.

You do have to be very careful that at no point from then on does the bar pass through the bridle.
I prefer to pack the kite away by folding in from both sides, but if its windy, I'll fold it over and roll it up to the centre.

Same with pumping the kite up, carrying it etc. you have to keep the bar away from the bridle. I have made mistakes and got the bar through the bridle. The IDS makes it easy most times to repass the bar through the other way if the wind isn't too strong or gusty, but its always better to be careful enough and then you avoid that.

[Billy B.]

I used to always leave my bars attached I had a bar n lines for every kite and as a snowkiter I used to also fly foils and this is common practice so I did the same with my pump up kites. I go through gear often and rarley have a kite for more then a year, some times only a couple of months so my gear is always in good shape.

I started noticing pin holes around my center strut/ leading edge on several kites after looking into all my kites I discovered it was from packing kites up with lines attached and bars in the rolled up kite. I tried to keep the bars separate from the fabric but this became harder to keep the lines free of twist. The kites I used to fly even had a sleeve inside the bag to place the bar into so it didd stop the pinholes but it increased the tangles.

I went back to removing the lines at each time because a pin hole free kite is more important to me then spending a extra minute setting up lines.