KS#5 - Weather to Avoid

[RickI]

The latest Kiteboarding Scenario has been released. It deals with the serious issue of unstable weather and squalls for kiteboarders. A squall blew one rider in Cabarete over 800 ft. horizontally a few months ago. This is an important subject for all kiteboarders to be knowledgeable about. The account has color graphics and lots of links to further information. The account may be reviewed at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kitesurf/ ... SCENARIOS/

Please be sure to cut and paste the ENTIRE above address into your browser address window to connect to the site.

Upon receipt of comments and final editing the account will be finalized and incorporated into the final Kiteboarding Scenarios document at the above location.

Good winds,
Rick Iossi

[RickI]

I have been mulling over a technique mentioned in this account for helping you to stop if lofted and firing forward at high speed. It is basically flaring, something that is done anytime someone flys airplanes,
hang gliders and paragliders. It is relatively easily done with these other aircraft, then again they are designed for it.

As near as I can figure it out in kiteboarding, flaring would consist
of going through the motions to induce a jump or in effect "backwinging" the kite. In this case the goal is not to jump, at least not much but to shorten or stop your flight as smoothly as possible. Normally when lofted the rider flys full speed to earth with
a hard impact and potential associated serious injuries. The trick in this case as in hang gliding and to a lessor degree perhaps in paragliding and powered flight is to flare at just the right moment to
bleed off speed safely to minimize or eliminate injury upon impact.

So, I would like to make a request for advanced riders ONLY and particularly those that hang glide or paraglide. This manuver could go wrong during development and it may take advanced riding/flight skills
to avoid creating another KSI account for some. Please be careful! The next time you are out in good wind and well offshore
consider trying something while jumping. Induce a jump, perhaps a relatively low rapid jump by bringing your kite up from 35 to 40 degrees to near the zenith or vertical. While you are blasting forward at speed and when
you think you have slowed down enough to try it, go through the motions of inducing another jump. The goal is not to gain altitude, far from it, but to stop or significantly slow your forward motion. I know that when I induce popup jumps or those where almost all of the motion is vertical I virtually stop forward motion upon landing.

Another technique that you could try would be to attempt to reverse direction once your speed has drained off but while you are still
airborne. I am less certain about this approach so again, BE CAREFUl and please don't bother with any of this if you are in any doubt. Be careful about stalling your kite or even worse stalling it and getting wrapped up in the lines. This was the main happening of a serious KSI account to be released in a few days. So for advanced
riders that have wind, I don't right now, please experiment with this and let me know how things go. I would like to refine a flaring or stopping technique for kiteboarders to be used in emergencies. That
is assuming that the lofted rider has time to do any of this. Some riders that have been in major lofting incidents seem to have some seconds to try to modify the outcome of the lofting.

Thanks,
Rick Iossi

--- In kitesurf@y..., "Rick Iossi" <flkitesurfer@h...> wrote:
> The latest Kiteboarding Scenario has been released. It deals with
the
> serious issue of unstable weather and squalls for kiteboarders. A
squall
> blew one rider in Cabarete over 800 ft. horizontally a few months
ago. This
> is an important subject for all kiteboarders to be knowledgeable
about. The
> account has color graphics and lots of links to further information.
The
> account may be reviewed at:
>
>
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kitesurf/ ... SAFETY%20R
EFERENCES/3.%20%20KITEBOARDING%20SCENARIOS/
>
> Please be sure to cut and paste the ENTIRE above address into your
browser
> address window to connect to the site.
>
> Upon receipt of comments and final editing the account will be
finalized and
> incorporated into the final Kiteboarding Scenarios document at the
above
> location.
>
> Good winds,
> Rick Iossi

[RickI]

It can be a bit of a hassle to signup for yahoogroups to access the files there. Of course once it is done, you are there and things become quite easy. I have reproduced the first part of the account below. The radar photo, windgraph and analysis are in a pdf file at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kitesurf/ ... SCENARIOS/


Sudden gusts may represent the single greatest hazard to kiteboarders of any skill level. It is best to review the weather and stay fully aware of changes while you are out shredding.


KITEBOARDING SCENARIOS #5

"Weather to Avoid"

You are on a week long kiteboarding trip to Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, USA. The winds have been good for a few days and you are looking forward to yet another great day of sunny shredding in 15 to 20 kt. sideshore winds inside the barrier island. You are out on a 16 m four line inflatable kite. This is the first day that there have been intermittent rain showers and some minor variation in the wind. You disregard the weather conditions as you are on vacation and having too much fun. It is near the end of the day and you notice a dark grey cloud mass sliding in from the west but start to load up for your next jump and forget all about it.

You are styling, popping spins and inverted tricks for your friends and the ladies on the beach about 50 ft. to the east of you. You just launch another really nice jump when you hear a sudden strong blast of wind (see the 20 kt. gust in Figure 1 below). You are already flying but suddenly you fire forward in a very strong gust that has shifted direction to side onshore and gain altitude rapidly. The next thing you know you are flying overland and still gaining altitude. You are snap shackled in and debate about unhooking and dropping free of your kite. You are trying to figure out what to do but panic is starting to dominate your thoughts. You are heading rapidly towards a six story building and are fixating about slamming into it. You do remember to "fly the kite" or maintain kite control through all this. You then think about reversing your flight back toward the water through a transition-like move. You do this successfully, reversing your direction back towards the water but you gain even more altitude in the process. You guess that you must be about 50 ft. off the ground at this point. You are moving at high speed, something like 30 kts. towards the water and are starting to lose altitude quickly. You finally slam into the water, which turns out to be over a sand bar and quite shallow. Everything blacks out on impact as you lose consciousness. You are not wearing a helmet or impact pfd.

Bystanders run out to help, take you to shore, EMTs arrive and take you to the emergency room. You are diagnosed as having a severe concussion, with minor brain hemorrhaging and are kept in the hospital for observation and stabilization for four days. You are released but have fragmentary recollection of the accident as you suffered some amnesia. You luckily return to normal health and thinking ability in only about one month.

(for the rest of the analysis and suggestions on both avoiding and dealing with this situation checkout the link listed above)

Rick Iossi


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: RickI on 2002-07-25 15:14 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: RickI on 2002-07-25 15:15 ]</font>