Careless kiteboarder arrested

[RickI]

The following is a repost of a recent email from Paul Menta made on the FKA list:

"Something for everyone to think about:
I went to Mexico to organize a kiteboarding championship over the new year.
We had it on some different beaches with 1000's of people and no problems, a
lot of help from the police. when you think things out on what you will do
and look at what the problems can be, it makes it easier to avoid them.

On a previous trip, I had a talk to an instructor there who taught on a
crowded beach about safety ,leashes ect.kinda laughed at my dumb American
ass.

Well mister rocket engineer teaches on the beach the day before the event,
very crowded, no room, NO LEASH! 18MPH/F-ONE FOIL 2LINE

needless to say the student lost the kite, bar hit a child and wrapped her
up and drug her into a palapa. She was hurt pretty good.

Homeboy that was teaching was arrested and put in jail. They considered this
a harmful act that he knew would happen. He had it coming to him, you will
soon be taking responsibility for you actions with this sport. Next day for
the comp, they came and checked the safety and let us go. Did not lump us in
with the idiot.morel of the story: Keep your shit straight and you wont be
grouped with those who don't!

aloha... Paul Menta"

This sport is not as easy as it looks. Kiteboarders that ignore this may cause harm to others as in this case and to themselves. Going to jail for poor judgment is no picnic. Overconfidence and carelessness can earn all sorts of reality checks and punishments. Hurting others in the course of this is inexcusable. Lots of riders have concluded that they don't need kite leashes and particularly with foils. This avoidable accident proves them wrong. There are far more inflatable kites in use than foils these days. An inflatable kite can travel much further at speed and with full power than a foil. ALL KITEBOARDERS NEED TO USE TESTED KITE LEASHES AND KEEP RESPONSIBLE DISTANCES FROM OTHERS.






_________________
Rick Iossi

Promote "Ride Hard & Safer, Ten Ideas..." PRESERVE YOUR ACCESS TO RIDE

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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: RickI on 2003-01-07 23:54 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: RickI on 2003-01-07 23:57 ]</font>

[Toby]

here we go.
as expected, something like this was about to happen.

Great that they arrested him!
Why ban all if only one did a mistake?

In Germany they would ban the sport completly (at least at this beach) if that would happen, unfortunately....

Time to think before acting!

Greets
Toby

[Wolfgang]

In Germany they would ban the sport completly (at least at this beach) if that would happen, unfortunately....

I think that depends on the reaction/behaviour of the intentionally careless guy and what's also important is the knowledge of the police or other authorities about what's avoidable in kitesurfing and what isn't...

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Wolfgang on 2003-01-08 00:31 ]</font>

[Andres_Santacruz]

Luckily the accident happened in mexico, where banning will probably never happen. Not that it wasn't bad for the child, but its good that we are not in the US, where the guy would have gotten sued for sure. But anyway, i know the guy who got arrested and he deserved it, when i was there 3 weeks ago, guys were worried about him teaching on that beach, and said that an accident was just waiting to happen, they had all tried to talk to him but he hadn't listened. The good thing is that foka and joseph who organized the competition had and HAVE a lot of support from the mayor and the town council, the tourism board sponsored around 2000 dollars in prize money for the event, and had police support, boat support among other things. The mayor was there to open the event with Paul Menta, who shook his hand after landing from a jump where he took his board off and landed on the beach. My friends say it was really cool!
Anyway, i hope everyone learns from this that sometimes we have to be more persistent with irresponsible people and that sometimes we will have to bring the authorities into it before it is too late.
Kite safely,
Andres Santacruz

[Johnny TBKS]

I must not have understood Anres post properly.

Am I to understand that Paul Menta was there to overlook the safety of the event, and he was kitesuurfing in the water, did a jump, took his board off and landed ON THE BEACH!?!

Ok..so who here ISN'T guilty of doing this at least once or twice? I'm not trying to sound like a hypocrite, but I just dont understand being one to look after safety and then setting an example like that. SURELY I mis-understood Andres. SURELY!

Johnny

[Blow Me]

Yikes. Doin time in a Mexican Jail. Anybody know how much time he got?

[cyclone]

yikes, i could add to that but i wont...

[RickI]

Something like this is bad for the sport and the involved parties where ever it occurs. Each country has different laws and reactions to an accident of this kind. It would be fair to say that most would be bad, to very bad for both the kiteboarder and access. Toby is right, "Time to think before acting!" There are lots of people out there doing ill advised things and ignoring good advice. Some have died as a consequence such as the new rider in Spain or were injured such as the rider lofted recently in Brisbane and a number of other similar incidents and accidents around the world. Some people just insist on the choice to do foolish things despite wise, well intended advise. I imagine that lots of other extreme sports went through this with each with their share of Darwin Awards canidates.

Perhaps it might help to prepare a short summarized listing of accidents involving guys that ignored advice and went out a got injured or worse injured someone else. You could then hand it to some of these hard cases while you have a chat with them with your friends. If that fails offer to launch their kite and pull the leading edge plug as they do in Maui with a polite but firm apology and explaination. We need to do something, the lessons are getting out slowly and being picked up even more slowly. In the meantime access issues build in many areas.

Rick Iossi

[Andres_Santacruz]

Johnny,
This is what i was told, but it was part of the show, the beach had been cleared and there was a lot of room to do what he did.

I think the guy must have spent one night before somebody bailed him out, he is portughese so he might have more problems as well.
Andres