Comparative risk of kitesurfing

[Toby]

thx for that Rick.

Marc: no, that's why I'm not doing it! But it might be safer according to stats, but no one has them!

[fishy]

i gave up rugby to take up kitesurfing as i was getting injured too much, and probably a bit too old every week there would be somebody with stitches, or concussion or something strained or broken, horrendous really, but thankfully never any fatalities.

i think in that respect kitesurfing is a lot less dangerous than many of the physical contact sports. as with many 'extreme' sports the level of risk greatly drops as long as you keep within your capabilities - also remember more people are kiting so we will unfortunately have more incidents.

i'm going to keep doing it for as long as i can!

[FredBGG]

Kitesurfing the way the majority does itis dangerous.

By that I mean ride with no safety gear.

I find it really hard to understand how anyone can practice a sport where the forces are sufficient for jumping 20 feet or more and not where safety gear.

Thepoint I am getting at is that in this debate about safety yo can do so much to make the sport way safer by making a small effort and a smaller sacrafice and use the following safety gear...

Helmet
Impact vest
Serious wetsuit (except where it will give you heat stroke)
Line knife with lanyard (better two line knifes)
Do not use a board leash in anything except really light wind and even then only one that has a quick release at the harness.

Avoid leash shackles that can let a line get captured in them.

Next important thing is kite choice. DON'T get a kite that turns faster than your style or skill level requires. Fast turning kites are great fun and I love them, but shit hapens quiker especially death spins.

One dangerous thing about kiting, especially with the newer gear is that kiting is quick to learn and you end up going fast and high feeling somewhat superhuman while the experience/wisdom thing is trying to catch up. All riders should be cautious and ready for misshaps.

If you aproach kiting with hummility and learn all you can from other experienced riders its a great and safe enough sport.

Always listen to the guys and gals that talk safety and don't trust the guys that just pump you up.

Oh yea one last thing NEVER TRUST THE MARKETING HYPE!
The vast majority of accidents and close calls that I have seen were on kites marketed with claims such as "MAXIMUM SAFETY"

ONE LAST WORD OF ADVICE... and I think it's the single most important one. Make using your safety release a natural reflex. I have made it a habit to repeatedly reach for my safety release and get a firm grip on it.
What I do is go for it alternating hands. I do this on the water , on land before I launch etc.

Making it a habit means that it will become a fright and flight reaction and we know how dangeros hesitiation can be.

Cheers

Fred

[Tom183]

Yeah... but that is true for all sports... for horse riding, bike riding, e.g... What I would really like to know is a kind of average risk list of a variety of sports and habits... My expectation is that kitesurfing is much safer than many other sports or habits which are not even perceived as "extreme"... My impression is that the image of kitesurfing is much more "extreme" than it really is...

I think the "average risk" of an immature (new) sport is always going to be higher than in a mature sport, where the dangers are well documented and therefore easier to avoid. Kitesurfing is moving away from that "extreme" status where the early riders were test monkeys, and toward a more mainstream sport where a well-informed participant is at fairly low risk.

But no matter how safe the sport gets, it will always be "visually energetic".

[Wolfgang]

Thanks for the info, Rick...

[PaulMcD]

Here is my view on kite safety. The sport is dangerous no matter how you cut it and while the risk can be substantially reduced, it can not be eliminated. In the financial world we would call it a low occurance but high severity event. Rock climbing has many similar charecteristics. For newbies (even those with lessons) the risks are porptionally higher becaise of lack of experience but interestingly, a well trained newbie will often view safety as priority one and so will be very cautious.
Experienced kiters can often have catastrophic accidents because of either complacency or skill levels allow them to do tricks that if mistimed can result in disaster. Just look at guys jumping stone jetties as but one example. I am now quite an experienced kiter and feel that I can manage nearly any wind or sketchy launch. It takes a very disciplined approach to shy away from situations that are just too risky and to abide by saftey rules every time the kite gets launched or landed. It is very easy to say but very hard to do every time and that is why no matter how "safe" the kites get, user error will raise its ugly head from time to time and folks are going to get hurt. With a power source as big as our kites are and the ability of that power source to move as rapidly as it does, there is just no way to make it completely safe. Safer but not safe.

[Tom183]

Just look at guys jumping stone jetties as but one example. I am now quite an experienced kiter and feel that I can manage nearly any wind or sketchy launch.

That is risk by choice - not inherent to the sport itself.

Don't blame the sport if you're the one making it dangerous by the choices you make.

[Skyway Scott]

I totally agree with the low occurrence high severity idea. Many of these events are often out of our control, such as the winds gusting out of control (not always obvious and predictable here in St. Pete with NW cold fronts) or an equipment failure which leads to the kite pulling the "loops of death" move.

It's these non-foreseen events that have tried to whack me over the years.
My best defense? Stay fairly far from shore while riding.

[badmrfrosty]

Again and again sad news hits us, letting us know about kitesurfing accidents and fatalities... and it is important that we learn from these cases, technically and behaviour-wise, in order to keep the risk as low as possible.

What I would be interested in is to know more about the comparative risk of kitesurfing. Just an example for what I mean:

When I look at smoking, there are 20 million smokers in Germany, and 140000 smoking related deaths every year, which makes a risk of 1 in 150 smokers. 20000 new lung cancer cases every year are related to smoking in Germany, which makes a lung cancer risk of 1 in 1000 smokers.

You could continue and do this for other unhealthy habits and compare this to the risk of all kind of sports, like horse riding, skiing, snowboarding, surfing, swimming, etc., and kitesurfing, of course. Maybe Rick Iossi or other people who know more than me about it can help with some info on the issue... or advise about a related thread in the forum...

Ok that is pretty specious reasoning. Think about it this way. How many people have died of smoking after only doing it 30 times. I would say zero. How many kiteboarders die after doing it less than 30 times. Uh a lot more than zero. I would guess most of the fatalies are with the less experienced.

apples to apples man

[tautologies]

Ok that is pretty specious reasoning. Think about it this way. How many people have died of smoking after only doing it 30 times. I would say zero. How many kiteboarders die after doing it less than 30 times. Uh a lot more than zero. I would guess most of the fatalies are with the less experienced.

apples to apples man

well here you are wrong..there are more accidents with experienced kiters...we have the sense that we can control it better, and then we loose concentration for a fraction of a second. It happens.

Even kiters that are safety conscientious can have pretty bad accidents.

A.