Postby Don Monnot » Sun Apr 07, 2013 3:33 pm
When I was a noob I actually had something very similar happen to me. I talked a non-kiter into helping me launch--no other kiters around. In my haste to get on the water, I wasn't in quite the right position for a launch but gave the guy the thumbs up to launch. He did exactly what I told him to do, and the kite tumbled straight downwind from me just as a monster gust hit.
The kite hot launched (an old C-kite with very limited depower) and I tried to hang onto and control the kite. I was actually standing in shallow water when the kite launched, but got tea-bagged out of the water, over a small retaining wall, bounced along the ground, over a picnic table, bounced off of a signpost, and then my kite went over the top of a large tree. I was ready to punch out all along the way, but kept thinking I could control it and save the kite. The trip over the picnic table was actually kind of fun.
As the kite went over the tree, I got picked up about 6 feet off the ground as the kite came down in the lee of a building. At that point things were very stable. Without any wind on the kite, I sort of wiggled a bit and came down to the ground nice and slowly. Too much tension on the lines for me to just unhook, so I used my hook knife to cut the lines. The poor guy that helped me launch disappeared pretty quickly. I suspect he figured he had done something wrong and that I'd be pissed at him or something. Totally my fault for being too anxious to get on the water, combined with inexperience.
Since then I've had the same "tumble down wind and hot launch" experience several times at the same spot, but with kites that had a lot more depower and me with more experience in controlling the power. It's a very tough launch site, with very unpredictable wind. No way to launch farther from shore. The vid on this thread sure brought back the memory of that first time. I was certainly very lucky. I also had a spare bar, and after I recovered the lines from the tree, I swapped bars and went kiting.
Don