Hey Folks

I did a beautiful face plant yesterday and ended up 10-15m downwind from my board.

I started dragging over and back like a lovely shark lure and took bl*#dy ages to get back to the board.

I was doing all the usual, arm out in the water, bring the kite slowly depowered overhead plus a bit of kicking when changing sides etc. Some passes I even seemed to loose ground on the stupid thing.

I was trying to decide if i should have the kite powered or not when dragging. It seemed that when powered I might have been pulled down wind more than I was gaining upwind??

Any ideas / correct technique much appreciated.

Cheers

Up-wind body dragging is a bit easier and more natural in a seat harness, because the point of attachment is lower giving most of your upper body as a leverage pointing up wind. If you use a waist harness, make sure you push it down from you chest and point your upper body more up wind.

If you can normally body drag upwind ok, this may have been a current moving your board upwind instead of wind and current moving it downwind to meet you- happened to me once, very frustrating and confusing till I figured it out!
Otherwise I reckon moderately powered up gives best body drag results.

The trick is to learn how to pick up another kiters stray board and drop drwn wind of them, hoping that the day you drop ur own board someone will do this for you.
Think its called Karma

harry potter said...

Disagree with most of you guys....... I say not well powered at all fly your kite higher and further forward in the wind window....with enough power to give you "lift" ..... I dont even use my arm out in front as it can get tiring and I just never need to do it.. keeping my legs and torso stiff is more than enough.........

also as someone else mentioned long tacks .... this helps big time

with more power and your arm out your tacks are smaller

You actually do whatever you would do when riding on the board. That is, adjust the kite according to the situation.

Generally you would push the bar out and get as far upwind as possible until you feel underpowered then pull the bar in to gain a little extra grunt.