SLE / Bow difficult water relaunch situation, technique?

[Sloberdog]

SLE difficult relaunch situations. Help with technique.

Been flying a Naish SLE for a few weeks now. Relaunching the kite from the water in the regular leading edge down with the canopy open is a dream, just pull one side until the kite launches on its own. Yesterday I experienced a difficult relaunch situation when the kite fell on its back, the canopy on the water and the towards me, the same way you would see a kite flying on a single 5th line, on its back and hovering. I tried all sorts of relaunch techniques, thought I had it, then it inverted, bridal got wrapped on wingtip, kite tries to launch on own, one big mess, so I release the bar (with leash attached ) and swim for shore.

I search the forum and could not find the answer to relaunching an SLE in this position. What is the proper technique?

Also, does anybody else have a problem with lines getting wrapped around bar after crashing an SLE or Bow? I have and it is not fun as the kite starts looping. Not sure if it’s the pulley bar system or what, but it has happed to me a couple of times already with this bar. I do not recall this ever having this problem in my years of flying normal C-kites or PL Venoms. Maybe it is the Naish SLE bar due to the large power/depower handles or ??.

[tautologies]

Hi, when it lands on its back, I've just pulled the back line and the kite relaunched successfully.

I guess you could pull both backlines at the same time to get the kite back on its leading edge. If you pull them hard enough, I guess you could reverse relaunch the kite...

I have never really had an entangling problem no. I did launch my kite with a wrapped line, but I just pulled the other back line to land the kite...

A.

[Sloberdog]

I did try pulling on one side of the kite and not much happened. I finally pulled in about 8ft of outside line, the kite finally got up on one side, but then all went to shit. Bridal got caught on tip, inverted, line wrapped on my bar, it became a mess.

How much back line should I have pulled in? Should the kite be fully sheeted in or out? I know I will have this happen again, so I know I will get another chance to practice. I will also try pulling both lines with the kite sheeted out for more rear line pressure.

[toyletbowl]

slober...

are you talking about leading edge up? trailing edge is in the water? that's my read of how your kite is sitting. if wrong...ignore the rest. if so...this is super easy to relaunch.

1) make sure you have resistance against the kite. if not, the trailing edge may fill with water.
2) depower the bar completely. pull the depower strap in ALL the way and push the bar out ALL the way.
3) make sure the kite is symmetrical in the water. if not, it will probably start rolling over on its' side when you depower.
4) this is a hot launch position
5) if the kite hasn't basically lifted off the water on it's own while depowering it...pull on the center lines. this will depower even more.
6) the kite should just lift straight up in the power zone.
7) keep the bar out all the way until the kite gets overhead and adjust back to normal setting right away.

biggest problem is if the kite fills with water on the trailing edge....one time i depowered everything...the kite was symmetrical and i just let go of the bar, turned around and swam upwind hard away from the kite to get the kite to lift up on top of the water. it worked.

another trick...if the kite is ready to launch...put your board on your feet and you'll have an automatic restart.

hope this helps.

bob
http://www.kiteridersllc.com

[Nak]

What's worked well for me is to pull both lines on one side, front and back. So far this has prevented any bridle tangles. As the kite approaches sideways to you be prepared to let go of the lines quickly! The kite fills with wind and pretty much an instant relaunch. At least with the kites I've tried it with. Probably the best thing is to try it sometime in a controlled situation, so you know what technique works best with your kite.

Nak

[surfingwithkites]

I think this is one of those real world shortcomings of bridled kites that no one wants to acknowledge. They do get stuck on their backs sometimes (I'm sure some great bow defender will respond with a tale of how they saw a C do this same thing back in 2003 or something) and are not always the easiest kites to relaunch. I know Cs are sometimes hard to relaunch too but seem to have less weird habits and way less tangles. I don't think there is a secret technique for this situation or for bridles wrapped around wingtips. It's just one of the prices you pay with that style of kite and you have to weigh that against the positive of all that depower. It's just common sense that longer more complex chicken loops will have more tangles and more things to get lines wrapped around. It's one of the things that drove me back to Cs. You might consider trying one of the new Cs like the Airush reactor or Naish torch. For a lot of riders these offer more than adequate depower and superior performance and simplicity.

[Peter_Frank]

I think this is one of those real world shortcomings of bridled kites that no one wants to acknowledge. They do get stuck on their backs sometimes (I'm sure some great bow defender will respond with a tale of how they saw a C do this same thing back in 2003 or something) and are not always the easiest kites to relaunch. I know Cs are sometimes hard to relaunch too but seem to have less weird habits and way less tangles. I don't think there is a secret technique for this situation or for bridles wrapped around wingtips. It's just one of the prices you pay with that style of kite and you have to weigh that against the positive of all that depower. It's just common sense that longer more complex chicken loops will have more tangles and more things to get lines wrapped around. It's one of the things that drove me back to Cs. You might consider trying one of the new Cs like the Airush reactor or Naish torch. For a lot of riders these offer more than adequate depower and superior performance and simplicity.

What a load of crap to say here

C'mon - you must be able to do better than this ?

You are worse than Experimental Player now...

There must be many who almost dont dare to ask how to "solve" SLE/Bow issues - as they know 100% they will get a "smacking" from either you or E.P.
(only difference is you do it more polite at first glance, but more often/consistently than E.P)

Why is this ???

I dont get it - it used to be an open forum with actual answers to the questions asked - not so anymore...
Now it is a religous manifest where every single little chance you get for dissing a Bow kite is used

Why do you continue dissing all those who are happy with their new kites ???
You've made your point - that should be enough, thank you.
(in threads discussing the kite types that is more okay of course, to some extent, but in other threads )

What you are implying with your answer to Sloberdog (and everyone reading) is:
Ha haa - you've bought the wrong kite, and now you have to live with that (or sell it).
There is no technique so it is impossible to solve your problem or help you, it WILL just happen
Dont listen to the other answers - there is no solution to your relaunch situation...

Very unpleasant - and how are you helping this guy (and others reading the topic to find some answers) ?

Very odd Most of us with some experience can help others in this forum, no matter if it is a foil or a C or an SLE/Bow kite.

I have nothing against any of the kite types - but if some has, that is okay and an opinion.
But this is getting ridicoulous IMO

Not as kindly this time, Peter Frank

[s29feb]

Back to the original question - if the kite did manage to get trailing edge down - did it 'fall back' onto it?

If so is there enough wind for it to be flying/relaunch?

If there is then the hot launch technique is best if you have enough space and deep enough water.

[ckramer]

There were a couple of posts some time ago, as when I first started using flat kites I was looking for the same thing. Unfortunately the search on the forum gives too many results, sometimes it is useless. I tried to make a search for you buy got too many results.

Same points were mentioned. Pulling on centrelines to "pump" the kite out of the water works, especially on lightwind days when kite fills rapidly with water, and is anchored down by the traling edge. Another technique mentioned was to flag the kite (don't know whether pr where you ahve one of those o'shit handles on your bar). By flagging the kite as if you were to self rescue, kite should get flat on the water. When you grab the bar again it should get in a normal side launch position. this requires some more wind.

[ckramer]

About the bow sle c kite stuff... it will eventually go away. When I started reading kiteforum, it was all about Best... it was irritating, either bashing best or putting it on a pedistal... now best have a better image, better kites, and have conquerred every beach in the world. I haven't been to any beach now without seeing a waroo, so bashing ets doen't make sense anymore, everyone can see it in person and decide.

Same with bows sle and newer c's
It's a mix of everything in any beach... one has only to decide on what he sees.