it was about 1/2 mile out in the middle of brest bay

Incorrect. That boat weighs over 5,000 lbs and has no brakes. It's not a car. During the 2-3 seconds that elapsed between the kiter getting into trouble and the collision, the boater yanked back on the throttle and cranked the steering. Excellent response. Reverse gear could not have been engaged that quickly. Not even close. If you think significantly more could have been done in 2-3 seconds, then I suspect you're misinformed.


Arrogant and self centered attitude. Only one arse in this scenario.

The kiter was evidently showing off to the boater, as kiters often do. Those who get buzzed by kites, whether power boaters, kayakers, swimmers or sunbathers, can't be expected to have a clue about the abilities and limitations of kites and kiters. If a kiter doesn't know the limitations of his own abilities and kite dynamics, how on earth is a boater supposed to know for him?

It's bad enough that some folks inflict their bad judgment on others, but even more pathetic to assign blame to someone else. A big apology goes much further.

Sad error in judgement by the kiter. Ride safely and take your risks independent of others.
Now that boater has to check props for tangles etc

Having seen the video I find it very hard to believe that the rider and boater weren't just fooling around trying to make an entertaining video. I mean he crashed the kite for NO apparent reason right in front of the boat. C'mon!! No way that wasn't intentional!! Nobody is that .....umm... I think it's called "delayed" now.

Well clearly there are going to be different viewpoints, but the facts in the video are pretty straightforward.

IMO that is not a heavy boat, more like a light runabout that has fairly quick response to throttle and steering.

The kiter changed direction at 00:39 and his kite was postiioned pretty low in the air. (Most boaters seem smart enough that they do not want to drive under the kite from what Ive seen - but hard to say what their exact intentions were at that moment by speculating),

However it does appears that the boat steers slightly to port and downwind to avoid overlap before the kite went into the water, unfortunately not with enough distance to escape the lines though.

So now the kiter is travelling toward the boat for 25 seconds
At 1:06 the kite hits the water.......6.. .5.....4......3......2......1....
At 1:12 the boat contacts the lines. IMO plenty of time for the boat to have slowed and turned enough to avoid the lines at the speed they were going. So from the video, the time between kite in water and boat hitting lines was more like 6 seconds than the "2-3 seconds" as someone has suggested above.

If the boaters claim/excuse is that they were travelling too fast to pull off an evasive maneuver in their type of boat then it would be my argument that they are passing too close and too fast.

Again, for the third time - I feel both contributed and share in fault, however from the standpoint of "control and initiation" - the kiter is the one who lost control, and he initiated the problem by dropping his kite in the path of an oncoming boat, and essentially it's easy to say that the kiters equipment crossed in front of the boat...but one wrong action does not exonerate the other.

It might be compared to a car losing control at the legally posted speed limit and having a collision with another car that was travelling at 2x the speed limit in the opposite direction - I'd say they were both at fault.

The YouTube title of the video makes it clear that the poster (the kiter) feels like the boater is the idiot....but I doubt he'll try this trick again.

You guys are all assuming the a boat / driver knows how to deal with kites...they do not. Which makes it even more important for us to stay the f#@k away from anyone else in the water. I do not think this is the boat drivers fault. How could he know that the kiters that is coming his way would drop the kite...and the come up with a response to the event.

...and the guy talks about going down to the boat and checking him out. ...then he goes Whazzup fellas before he loses control.

Here is the guy before the event: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxszvoNBgHg

....aaalllllrrright.

Roberto: You have your toiming wrong. There is 2-3 seconds between the kite hitting the water and boat hitting it. No time for the boat to come up with any kind of response to it.

I am pretty sure I carefully counted 6 seconds....if I'm wrong I'll stand corrected about that...I just tried to view it again but....pooof!...the video has been removed...which might begin to tell you another thing.

In that second somewhat bizarre video I did notice channel markers, which raises some obvious questions. I did not notice them in the "deleted" video, but would be interested to see that again. If the power boat was in a narrow channel it would certainly change his options to maneuver.

tautolgies, I agree 100% - kiters should NEVER ass-u-me that other people (in boats, on the beach, in the water) in general understand the dynamics of a kite and the associated dangers. That is clearly our responsibility.

On a similar note it's highly unlikely that the boater would know that the lines are 20, 25, 27m long? But I still think it would be safer and more proper if the boater stayed at least 100 feet from the kiter, cetainly at that speed....and depending on the jurisdiction it could be an operator violation.

Whether I'm on a sailboat or kiting, whenever I see a powerboat directly approaching my position with throttle down I immediately start thinking about getting out of the way. You just cannot know who is driving and what they are likely to do. I can't count the number of times I've had power boats run straight at me at high speed only to veer away at the last moment. In a lot of cases they are doing a fly by to check out the kitesurfing dudes, and I'd be willing to bet half the time these guys in power boats are well into a few boat drinks.

I actually don't find this situation to be that dramatic. I do not think the boater is to blame at all though.

Roberto: In general I think we are on the same page here

Kite hits the water at 1:08, boat hits between 1:10 and 1:11 Either way...even if it did take 6 seconds, I think that we should not assume that people neither know how to deal with kites nor come up with an avoidance strategy. In this video the kiter clearly seeks out the boat as in : "Lets go and check out"

In any case, the kite seems to be fine from my perspective.

Here is the vid again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyP5i0S4wE0

Boat = big and heavy.

Rider = small and easily damaged.

Lucky boat veered left instead of right.

Perspective of the helmet cam makes it look like the boat is a long ways away, but it's actually quite close.

Bottom line, stay away from boats unless you're willing to suffer consequences.

Hard to see where the boater was at fault.

Bob
www.kiteridersllc.com

OK, thanks for finding the video - and I stand corrected ona few points. Yes I'd take 2 seconds off the times I mentioned before. It does look like the boat was trying to bank to port, but may still have had some throttle on. when the kiter kooked out his kite went from port tack to starboard tack which probably made matters worse by pulling him downwind further than if he had maintained the kite on a port tack, especially with what appears to be a large Cab kite. The fact that he turned the kite 180 degrees at this last moment it could technically be considered a complete alteration of course within 5 seconds of contact...so I stand corrected on that as well. Judging from the fishing tackle on the boat this is probably not an inexperienced operator...but who knows who was driving?

After looking at this more carefully I think there is much more weight/fault on the kiters actions...and sorry to sound stubborn, but still think the power boat might have been able to give more room especially seeing that this guy was flying his kite pretty low directly in his path. I'm sure he would have been a bit pissed off if the kite lines caught all the rods he had rigged. I'm curious about how everyone handled themselves as they got it sorted. Again, good thing no bodily harm, just a little humble pie dished out.

PS: btw, if the OP intentionally titled this to thread to imply aggression ("assault") by the boater I think that is absolute bollox.