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2013 Blade Unibar not flagging properly

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mike holmes
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Re: 2013 Blade Unibar not flagging properly

Postby mike holmes » Wed Jun 12, 2013 3:43 pm

Slappysan wrote:
eldadgold wrote: A mini 5th release is not intended to depower your kite 100%. if you want to roll your bar you need to first roll up one of the back steering lines for 3-4 meters till the kite is fully flagged then roll up all the lines together.
I've never heard anyone ever recommend flagging a 4 line kite by a steering line before. That sound like a recipe for death loops to me.

With the bar up the safety front line the kite should be depowered enough to allow me to swim/pull up the safety line without wrapping it around my hands (something I'd never do) but my kite was still pulling me at 3-4 knots through the water and was too much for me to climb. This went on for 15 minutes.

When I did finally manage to reach my bar I figured that because the safety was deployed and the bar was several meters up the safety line that I could just start wrapping my lines, but when I did that the kite flew back in to the air fully powered and I had to let the bar go and was back at the end of the safety line.

10 minutes later when I fought my way back up to the bar I put 4 wraps of only a single front line on the bar then proceeded to wrap the rest on to the bar and managed to bring my kite in.
I agree with eldadgold, There is only one way to roll a bar and that is to first roll a steering line so the kite is totally flagged.

4 line kites with a mini 5th QR will only 90% depower on the mini 5th.

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Re: 2013 Blade Unibar not flagging properly

Postby UKSurf » Wed Jun 12, 2013 4:25 pm

yoav_at_blade wrote:Hello Slappysan.

Thanks for bringing this issue to our attention.
The design team discussed your issue, but it was difficult for them to understand exactly what may have caused the problem. In 20 knots of wind, the kite should have had more than enough power to pull the swivel through the safety line.

If you’d like, we can replace your bar with a new one and we can then send it to our design team for further analysis.
This is an extreme incident that should not happen and we would like to avoid in the future.

Sorry for the inconvenience this has caused.

Yoav
Great attitude. Alot better than some other brands who seem to think customer service is about bullsh*tting and posting picture of themselves doing jumps when anyone has a problem :roll:

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Re: 2013 Blade Unibar not flagging properly

Postby Tiago1973 » Wed Jun 12, 2013 4:30 pm

in those rare occasions i had to self rescue i´ve rolled the front line first (so there was less of a loop tendency)

honest question here - what´s the advantage of rolling the steering line over the front line?

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Re: 2013 Blade Unibar not flagging properly

Postby Laughingman » Wed Jun 12, 2013 5:15 pm

mike holmes wrote:
Slappysan wrote:
eldadgold wrote: A mini 5th release is not intended to depower your kite 100%. if you want to roll your bar you need to first roll up one of the back steering lines for 3-4 meters till the kite is fully flagged then roll up all the lines together.
I've never heard anyone ever recommend flagging a 4 line kite by a steering line before. That sound like a recipe for death loops to me.

With the bar up the safety front line the kite should be depowered enough to allow me to swim/pull up the safety line without wrapping it around my hands (something I'd never do) but my kite was still pulling me at 3-4 knots through the water and was too much for me to climb. This went on for 15 minutes.

When I did finally manage to reach my bar I figured that because the safety was deployed and the bar was several meters up the safety line that I could just start wrapping my lines, but when I did that the kite flew back in to the air fully powered and I had to let the bar go and was back at the end of the safety line.

10 minutes later when I fought my way back up to the bar I put 4 wraps of only a single front line on the bar then proceeded to wrap the rest on to the bar and managed to bring my kite in.
I agree with eldadgold, There is only one way to roll a bar and that is to first roll a steering line so the kite is totally flagged.

4 line kites with a mini 5th QR will only 90% depower on the mini 5th.
This really depends on what make/model your kite is, many kites these days are meant to depower 100% on either both front lines (Cabrinha IDS) or one front line (Blade, EPIC, Zeeko etc)... rear line self rescue imho seems to be a thing of the past (thank god) cause in the cases I have experienced it really did suck.

Pete

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Re: 2013 Blade Unibar not flagging properly

Postby bnthere » Wed Jun 12, 2013 6:25 pm

the statement about needing to wrap a steering line is not true. a centerline will also disable a kite. completely. 100% depower may or may not be the correct term. there is no instance in which the "pull" of a large kite can be 0 in the air or on the water in the wind (especially high wind). unless there is no line tension, which isnt going to happen for long and is not a realistic aspect of this conversation.


the point is, a kite can be disabled onto a single center line. a kite (some kites) may also be able to be disabled onto both centerlines (according to their brands anyways) in most cases although it still counts, kites disable the worst onto a single outside line.

it is almost an irresponsible statement to say that a kite needs to have tension on only a single outside line in order to disable it. that is not the case, and is in fact a less effective strategy than the other. every single inflatable kite ever (i am 99% sure, prove me wrong if you can) will disable equally well if not better onto a signal centerline than onto a single outside line, or both centerlines. including old C kites. and by single centerline i am referring to either one of the two center flying lines, not an additional 5th line (which is also a single centerline leash system) just to be clear.

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Re: 2013 Blade Unibar not flagging properly

Postby mike holmes » Thu Jun 13, 2013 10:36 am

You can't roll one front line if you have a mini 5th QR because a mini 5th QR means that the mini 5th is connected to the center line at the Y or under the Y but the connection has to be at least as far from the kiter as the distance of the steering line connection to the front point of the bridal so that the kite will be able to sit on its back (and even then it pulls a little). so it is quite far on some kites to reach a front line and start rolling it up first with out having a lot of excess lines floating around... Dangerous.

A QR that pulls a single center line is not a mini 5th QR.

I never mentioned QRing on a steering line. We are talking about how to roll up the bar after QRing in order to swim back to the beach with your gear.

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Re: 2013 Blade Unibar not flagging properly

Postby bnthere » Thu Jun 13, 2013 3:40 pm

ok, sorry, but your statement is confusing me.

1st, what are you calling a "mini 5th line". is it a double centerline system like cab ids, or north 4line bar or best redline, or is it like that with an even shorter "leash line" for the bar to travel up? what bars are you talking about??


2nd, as soon as a person is at a centerline, they can pull it in and wrap it enough to take the tension off the other flying lines, and have the kite disabled onto a single center line.


i reread it, and i think you are calling redline/ids/and double centerline system a mini 5th. i can't tell at what point you are recommending wrapping an outside line (and i still dont see why). i think your saying to do that in order to get line out of the water. this probably is a good idea, but is it necessary to keeping/making the kite be disabled?

if a double centerline system (like cab and north and redline and many others) has worked and your kite is on its back (or LE down facing into the wind), hanging from tension on just the two centerlines, and is staying that way, that can be considered disabled (although i dont like it), and a person would move hand over hand up the "leash line" until they reach the bar, at that point, wrap the leash line around the bar until all the line behind you is out of the water. at that point, you could begin wrapping all 4 lines around the bar and bring the kite in/approach the kite.

i would generally still recommend, however, that once at the control bar, a person pulls in and wraps one of the 2 centerlines until all line tension is on just the one, before beginning to wind all the lines onto the bar and approach the kite.

what is different about our approaches. because i know this one works. or are we talking about different bars somehow. but this could be done on any kind of double centerline leash system bar.

also, firing another shot a terminology thread: many people refer to the leash extension line that runs from the centerline(s) down through the bar as a mini fifth line, regardless of whether the leash system is a double or single centerline. i think it an unnecessary and ambiguous term, and people should stop using it.

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Re: 2013 Blade Unibar not flagging properly

Postby eldadgold » Fri Jun 14, 2013 11:09 pm

This is quite confusing thread.
The OP sais in the first post that he couldn't pull himself up the center line.
Now i am not sure what the situation was.

Anyways, it seems Balde Kiteboarding are descent guys and that their customer service is :thumb:

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Re: 2013 Blade Unibar not flagging properly

Postby Slappysan » Fri Jun 14, 2013 11:29 pm

When the release activated the bar/swivel didn't go far enough up the centre line to flag the kite so I was still essentially body dragging through the water from the end of my leash. It was 20 knots and I was being dragged hard enough that I was unable to pull my way up to the bar without wrapping the line around my hand (something far too dangerous to ever do IMO).

Anyway both Blade and KitePaddleSurf have been great dealing with it.

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Re: 2013 Blade Unibar not flagging properly

Postby fdvj » Sat Jun 15, 2013 7:29 am

Slappysan wrote:When the release activated the bar/swivel didn't go far enough up the centre line to flag the kite so I was still essentially body dragging through the water from the end of my leash. It was 20 knots and I was being dragged hard enough that I was unable to pull my way up to the bar without wrapping the line around my hand (something far too dangerous to ever do IMO).

Anyway both Blade and KitePaddleSurf have been great dealing with it.

Did your front lines have multiple twists in them at the time?


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