Hey guys I am somewhat new to kiting and love the sport thus far. My BIGGEST issue has been getting my lines crossed and tangled while trying to relaunch. At times the lines get so tangled that it prevents me from relaunching. Sometimes I pass the bar through the lines hoping that it will help but usually it makes things worse. Are there any tips you could offer the help avoid tangles?

Also, when I launch I lay out my lines, connect them, then walk into the water with my kite and lines and do an assisted launch. I have ran into issues with the lines becoming tangled during this process. Last time before I walked out I wrapped up my lines around my bar then lay them out once in the water. It seemed to work a bit better but what are some ways you guys find effective?

I appreciate the help and hope to learn some techniques that will ease my frustration with line tangles!

Easy:

Never put the lines in front of the kite - as they might blow over the kite and get tangled.

Always keep the lines "slack" when you connect them to the kite - so the bar wont get tangled.

Always put the lines on perpendicular to the wind, in order to help not take up space and be a nuisance to each and everybody else

If you just do this very systematically and the same way every time, you will never get a tangle again

When the kite goes down - if it tumbles - you can NOT avoid tangles now and then - nothing you can do about it...

But when you get experienced, this will happen very rare or not at all

Peter

The lines are the most dangerous part of your equipment. They can cut you to the bone and they can tangle your legs or arms so you cannot swim (happened to me once, thank god I was wearing a life jacket) . They can tangle your bar and power up the kite in deat loops (a few people died this way). Keep posting, ask questions, talk to others at the beach, get some lessons.

And by the way: if you drop the kite, swim away from it, this will keep the lines taut so they are less likely to tangle. If yo are a beginner you are much better off kicking out your board, do a few kicks underater to swim away from kite, relaunch the kite then recover board by body dragging.

the following is taken from a post I put up in 2005:

Kitemares happen! Someone just lost a toe as a result of hooking up his safety wrong.

A lot of kitemares may be avoided by gaining a complete understanding of the system you are using. Knowlege is power. The Boy Scout motto is "Be Prepared".

Here is the way I approached Kiteboarding 3 years ago. I made a model toy kite (it was an exact duplicate of my system). It even powered and depowered, when you hung it from the edge of a door.

During the windless, boring times I sat at a table with the model and played out every scenario I could think of....kite flipping through the lines every which way....releasing to the reride safety....safety line wrapped around bar...one line breaking. It really helped me when I got on the water. I could quickly figure out what was serious and what wasn't. It was especially good at showing me which types of line twists could be untangled on the water, and which types were hopeless or made worse by an attempt to straighten things out.



I recommend that everybody make a model of their kite control and safety system.....especially beginners.....but also anyone who is using a new style system. When you are out on the water, you can not analyze your system, since there is too much to think about already. Some people are fortunate and can visualize complex scenarios in their "minds eye", but most people can not.

If the guys who got into trouble with the old Slingshot bar system had played around with hooking the snap of the safety into the different rings, maybe they would have been impressed enough with the consequences, to "red flag" the action in their mind, and possibly avoid ever doing it.

The "puppet kite" is also good to use to demonstrate to your "normal" friends what you are compulsively rambling on about with all the "kiteboarding" this and "kiteboarding" that talk.

Here are 2 pictures showing the kite powered and then flagged.

Something doesn't sound right to me. You shouldn't have so much trouble with tangled lines, especially when launching. What do you mean by "walk into the water with my kite and lines"? Your kite should be on land where the person assisting you is holding the kite. When they lift the kite up, you might get some line twisting but usually you can rotate the bar until everything is okay.

Under powered up conditions it should be rare to have line problems. Light wind is a different story though - when the kite falls out of the sky with no line tension, bad things can happen.

Agreed, but unless I'm at the point where my kite is falling out of the sky I've never experienced any line tangling. The only thing i've had issues with is the horrible cabrinha bar which has a ton of knots and things for the lines to get caught on, so sometimes i've had to put the bar down and run to up to untangle something, but yeah usually you can just spin your bar a few times and it's all good....

I connect all lines and nothing is tangled. Then me and whoever is helping me carry out my kite with the lines already connected into the water where we then launch the kite. I live on a lake that has many sandbars and shallow water so I find launching in the water much safer then on land. But the process of transferring the lines from land to water seem to cause tangles or just very crossed and messy lines. Maybe I'm just not careful enough during the transportation??

sounds like it. there are often a lot of people on our beach, so after setting up the lines (behind the kite - nice and clean) we usually end up walking back up to the kite with the bar, then straight toward the water to go in between people or those fking protected turtle egg nests. i just hook in as soon as i pick up my bar and start walking, and as long as you attached all your lines correctly to begin with you'll always be able to just spin the bar to untwist whatever happened while walking to wherever you need to be to launch.

Thanks for the tips dylan, very helpful. Ill have to try that out. Anyone else have any techniques on how they transport their kite in a way that prevents messy lines after everything is rigged up??

I use a technique where: After the lines are stretched out and connected to the kite, and the lines are walked and double checked... then, I go to the bar, hook in, and grab the bar, with one hand, and walk back to the kite while carefully winding the lines back up on the bar, using "figure 8" winding technique. My friend who will launch the kite is standing at the kite, and when I get a few meters from him, he picks up the kite, carefully flipping the kite to the upside down position, so that he can carry the kite into the water... as we both walk into the water. The lines are not dragging on the ground, as we do that.

Once we are out deep enough, I carefully walk backwards away from the kite and unwind the lines, until they are all stretched out, and then we tension the lines, and check to see that there are no tangles, and then he launches the kite.

THE TRICK... is for you to grab the bar in ONE place, and never move your hand or release your grasp... through out the whole procedure of winding up the lines and unwinding the lines. Don't allow yourself to be distracted, or a loose line can slip around the end of the bar, and this will mess things up.

You will need a PATIENT friend because this technique is not as quick as one where your friend just graps the kite and drags the lines out over rocks and other debris. You friend must be careful to remember which way he flipped the kite when he picked it up and be sure to flip it the opposite way as he positions it for the launch.

Good luck.