What to do Here.

[Blow Me]

Ok. Kite goes down in the drink. LE is facedown, and basically the kite is inflated, and acting as sail, and pulling you downwind.

What is the best thing to do in this Situation?

Yes, it happen to Me.

ThanX in Advance.

_________________

PsydeWaze TeKnology

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Blow Me on 2002-12-16 05:36 ]</font>

[SunStruck!]

You've got to get your kite to flip over so that you can work it around to the edge of the window to relaunch. I pull hard on my bar and then let it go suddenly to release the tension in the lines. Swim as quick as you can towards the kite to allow the wind to flip it over. (I generally swim one handed. If you swim two handed,ie let go of the bar all together, be sure to pick up your bar correctly so that the left side is in your left hand etc) Once the kite has flipped you can then pull the bar heavily to one side to send the kite to the edge of the window. Hope this makes sense.

[Mr Jo Macdonald]

Hi Bm
Welcome to the club mate
You can try this
If you use a low Ar kite it's much easier to relaunch, just pull on
the bottom line, the kite will roll over and ride to the edge of the
window, pull on the top line to launch. As you're using average to
high AR kites you will have to get them on their back to relaunch.
The best way to get good at this is to practice in
the shallows. Its a hell of a lot easier to relaunch a high AR kite
in the shallows than in deep water, especially in light wind (below
10 knots). Below 7 knots anyone will have a hard time in deep water.
It is easier to get the kite back up in light wind if you put
your board on. Instead of dragging down wind you’ll hold your ground much better and put tension in the lines
and the kite will launch better.
You can practice this even on a light wind day by drift launching,
just walk into the water with the bar and kite, leave your board on
the beach. Drop the kite and let it drift down wind. When the lines
are taught, jerk on the bar (pulling in about 2 m, 4/5 arm’s lengths, of centre line then
letting go is ok too) then run towards the kite, if the water is
pretty shallow a few steps will have the kite on its back, you'll be
amazed how easy it is. Once it gets on its back you have to pull on
the top and bottom lines alternately to get the kite in the right C
shape, this is just something you'll learn by doing it, basically you
have to balance the kite so it don't fall over while you pull it into
the C shape, again in shallow water is 100 times easier and less
time/energy consuming. When you have the C shape keep pulling the
bottom lines until the kite reaches the edge of the window then pull
the top lines to launch, in low wind don't launch it too vertically
or it will stall and fall and you're back to square one. Once you
can do it in the shallows try in deeper water but remember you'll
need more wind.
If the wind is strong pulling in the middle leader can be energy and time consuming and the wind can blow the kite downwind so fast swimming doesn’t work, so it’s better to pull in about 2m (4/5 arm’s lengths) of one of the brake/side leaders while swimming/walking to the side, in stong wind the kite should roll over straight away and start launching, but anyway practicing in the shallows will give you more feeling.
If all else fails you can try letting it go to the leash because the kite should flap out on its back, then when you recover the bar balance the kite as above to get it into the C shape then pul the bottom line to get it to the edge of the window and then the top line to launch, using the bar obviously to pull the lines.
There will still be times you won't be able to relaunch in light
wind, no one can it's just part of the game.


Have fun.
Jo

[BLOWN AWAY]

Wow Jo that's a great description.... Heck I learned something from that post and I've been kiting 4 2 years... love this forum

BLOWN AWAY

[Mr Jo Macdonald]

Bin kiting 42 years?? man, you should be a dean in KS kollege or the retired head of wipika OZ or whatever??

[Blow Me]

ThanX for all the Great Advice Guys, it helps me A Lot.

Cheers.

[BLOWN AWAY]

On 2002-12-16 11:14, Mr Jo Macdonald wrote:
Bin kiting 42 years?? man, you should be a dean in KS kollege or the retired head of wipika OZ or whatever??

That's meant to be "for 2 years". In my past life I was kitesurfing for 10000 years but we won't go into that....

I was practicing relaunching yesterday due to winds being too light... Far easier in shallow water, this is what should be practiced when there isn't enough wind to kite... it's a part of kitesurfing that's very important otherwise we mite as well just use open sell foils and C Quads....

just my 2 cents...

BLOWN AWAY