Nothing has ever broken on you while kiteboarding? I need to learn your secrets for avoiding that as I have failed miserably to this point.
I have had seven of the eleven events happen to me while kiteboarding. Several more than once including at least a dozen broken flight lines in over four years. One serious FACT is that kite gear breaks almost routinely under normal loading in my experience and that of others. On the water it amounts to some inconvenience in most cases. Twenty meters or more over land it may result in slamming in very hard and a hospital visit if you are fortunate.
Paragliders are designed for this activity and hold up to the stresses routinely with rare failures. I have heard of cases of the other failures having happened to other kiteboarders including one tow-up kiteboarder accident described under:
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People will continue to do things like this regardless of what I have to say here or yourself for that matter. More information is generally better than less when trying new, potentially dangerous things or perhaps you believe "what you don't know can't hurt you?"
As to knowing everything, far from it. I prove that to myself every month by learning new things about kiteboarding, often the hard way. That fact that we talk about what we learn, suspect and wonder about moves us all ahead.
Rick Iossi