Guys from the UK had a smashing session...

sir ROWDY said...

What a f@#king retard... What the hell was the guy underneath him thinking? His kite is lower and thus must pass downwind. EVEN if he did get around the guy with the camera - then what??? His lines are still going to wrap the guy up.

That guy needs an axe through his windscreen or better a bullet to the head.
Luckily he didn't kill the poor bloke... Knocking him unconscious (and thus drowning) could have been pretty likely in that situation.

Some people are too stupid to kiteboard...

Luther said...

one less Euro touro heading our way this summer, poor sod !

Nomination for SB POTY award???

Hmmm well those 2 are best mates and they defo had a think about it... you can see the thread down there from UK forum:

kiteboarder.co.uk/kitesurfing/it-happened-53634

nah he did, his mate started to go upwind when really close. If you freeze the video at 7secs you can see the dread in the eyes knowing what's coming...

nice soundtrack pals

hello all....

i am the very kiter in the video with the camera on a head mount.
i am the kiter that edited up the footage.
i am also the kiter that now has a period of recovery as i dislocated my shoulder and popped it in there and then but as of today at fracture clinic have a rotator cuff injury caused by the impact.

now the reason i put the video on the kiteboarder site originally and also on facebook was to show what can go wrong when little mistakes are made in close proximity.
we had passed close by a few times as i'm sure lots do .upwind kite high downwind kite low getting some great footage.
but things go wrong occasionally and the pass by in question we messed up...the other kiter who is a great friend of mine( and still is) had taken his front hand off the bar to point at me as he went past and in doing that we think that his hips twisted naturally sending him further upwind and buy the time he'd realized his track had changed and by the time i realized , i had no where to go, couldnt even sling a jump in..............

ive been kiting 7 years and my mate longer and both in all conditions in all weathers...not trick monkies but confident,competant riders.....
this time we made a mistake.. both to blame , maybe my mate more as rights of way etc but i share some of it also.
he is gutted to cause the accident and inflict this down time on me and he is also quietly sore also...

thing is i dont like reading the comments about him personally and personal attacks on him..i can see that would be the case if it was a lunatic local cutting up others...but just to repeat he is my mate and it was an accident.

i will agree it was hugely avoidable and should never happened but it did and we are both f**ked off it happened.
the session was the best id had this year until that impact and i'd taken my rib up tothe spot for us to kite...it was magical until ...........

i just wanted to show the video and show how easily it can go wrong.

i (we) also realise that it couldve been a lot worse ,boards ,legs,heads etc .it doesnt bear thinking about but it wasnt ...
i'm still at a loss to work out how and where my shoulder got dislocated ...i think i spun round him as he wrapped in my depower rope and my right shoulder hit his shoulder blade as i ended up facing backwards and he was stopped as normal.water was knee deep.
the north ironheart released on impact so the kite was killed straight away.

ive got a MRI scan on the horizion and a slight possibility of a operation to put a slither of bone back but its all dependant on the scan.

thanks for watching the video (watch some of my others ...i dont crash often )
again please dont verbally abuse my mate as far as we're concerned it was just a cock up accident (i did call him a t**t at the time as i lay in the water )

when i get out again i wont change my kiting practices riding ..just maybe wear some american football kit when i'm out with my kite buddy

ps nothing like a bit of acdc on the water
and the camera was the go pro hd on a head strap

peace guys and see you on the water

Yeh sh1t does happen. I kite with just my bro a lot. Just two guys in the water and we have nearly had the same thing happen, then again we are noted for jumping over the top of the upwind guy (I know stupid and not vouching for this behaviour). One time before we realised (which we do now) to just obey the rules even if just two of us, this could have happened, but he dropped his kite at the last second and pointed as hard as he could upwind and I skipped face forward across the top of his lines! From then on we obey the basic passing rule, even if just two of us.

There is some good that can come from this. Two relatively experienced kiters have Farqed up with consequences (speedy recovery mate), message, follow the rules regardless. We haven't had a problem since.

eppo

... whoa, that vid looked very familiar.

Yep, confession time,,, I've done something like this too,,, to my own missus no less. And let me just say I don't do this sort of thing anymore!

Went to jump over the missus, me heading out, she heading in, if I were in the above video, I would have been the camera guy.

Well lit, I took off, all angles worked out (so I thought) but she went upwind alot better than I expected, so as I start to go up, I abort and attempt to drop my front leg to try to stop and unsuccessfully to stop with my kite at 12, hoping she passes under me.

Didn't work out that way, I had too much speed and I ended up under her bar (which smacked me in the mouth, getting a fat lip which,,, I deserved) with my kite over her lines so now we have two kites attached to each other. We both go under water and I yelled out to punch out which I did but she didn't because she now had two kites pulling her along and she was furiously trying to swim for air.

She did eventually punch out and I threaded my bar and lines out of her lines and took off back to the beach to fix up my lines, but her lines were too messed up and no way to relaunch the kite. She ended up doing an hour swim in and as you can imagine, was non too happy with me.

A silver lining came out of it though, even though she "thought she knew" how to self rescue, she discovered she couldn't flip the kite over, too windy and kite too heavy. She ended up too tired and not strong enough to flip kite over to self rescue so next day we re-visited the exercises and I taught her strategies to make it much easier. In her panic she forgot a lot of simple steps so in the calm of next session, it all made sence and was easy.

Clearly my mistake and I learned from it, and ironically she is sooo much more confident now having gone through it. If the bar hadn't given me a fat lip, she would have.

cheers,

Robbie

dafrog said...

nah he did, his mate started to go upwind when really close. If you freeze the video at 7secs you can see the dread in the eyes knowing what's coming...

Why do kiters tend to try to outpoint all the time, EVEN WHEN ON PORT TACK?

Don't.

Puetz said...

... whoa, that vid looked very familiar.

Yep, confession time,,, I've done something like this too,,, to my own missus no less. And let me just say I don't do this sort of thing anymore!

Went to jump over the missus, me heading out, she heading in, if I were in the above video, I would have been the camera guy.

Well lit, I took off, all angles worked out (so I thought) but she went upwind alot better than I expected, so as I start to go up, I abort and attempt to drop my front leg to try to stop and unsuccessfully to stop with my kite at 12, hoping she passes under me.

Didn't work out that way, I had too much speed and I ended up under her bar (which smacked me in the mouth, getting a fat lip which,,, I deserved) with my kite over her lines so now we have two kites attached to each other. We both go under water and I yelled out to punch out which I did but she didn't because she now had two kites pulling her along and she was furiously trying to swim for air.

She did eventually punch out and I threaded my bar and lines out of her lines and took off back to the beach to fix up my lines, but her lines were too messed up and no way to relaunch the kite. She ended up doing an hour swim in and as you can imagine, was non too happy with me.

A silver lining came out of it though, even though she "thought she knew" how to self rescue, she discovered she couldn't flip the kite over, too windy and kite too heavy. She ended up too tired and not strong enough to flip kite over to self rescue so next day we re-visited the exercises and I taught her strategies to make it much easier. In her panic she forgot a lot of simple steps so in the calm of next session, it all made sence and was easy.

Clearly my mistake and I learned from it, and ironically she is sooo much more confident now having gone through it. If the bar hadn't given me a fat lip, she would have.

cheers,

Robbie

That story gave me the chills, this could have been a really serious accident... especially being your missus...

i reckon the gopro is a big part of the problem. people are so worried about getting that great footage they are oblivious to what's going on around them.
the presence of a camera of any sort is enough to turn a normally competent rider into an idiot.

Why do kiters tend to try to outpoint all the time, EVEN WHEN ON PORT TACK?

Don't.

There are far too many kiters out there that either dont know their port v starboard or pretend that it doesn't apply. Hoping this improves as racing becomes more mainstream in the kiting community.

dafrog said...

Puetz said...

... Robbie

That story gave me the chills, this could have been a really serious accident... especially being your missus...

... damn right, it was bloody stupid on my part, split second later and it could have been way worse too!

Funny thing too, mate who didn't see the incident, was kiting away minding his own buisness and suddenly found two boards side by side, hundreds of meters away upwind, looked around and only then realised we were in trouble, totally surprized to find 2 boards with no owners.

Did I mention, I've learned my lesson!!!!!

cheers,

Robbie

sk1nner said...

Why do kiters tend to try to outpoint all the time, EVEN WHEN ON PORT TACK?

Don't.

There are far too many kiters out there that either dont know their port v starboard or pretend that it doesn't apply. Hoping this improves as racing becomes more mainstream in the kiting community.

As kiters can't point upwind as much as a sailing boat, when 2 kiters are on a tack approaching each other they are often on what looks like parallel paths. As per sailing rules, the person on a port tack should give way however if I'm in this situation and I'm more downwind I bear off downwind even if I'm on a starboard tack. The best thing to do is show your intention early and drop kite to show you are going to bear off and pass downwind. It would be more clear cut on a race board as you could point more into the wind. For those who don't know, right foot going forwards is a starboard tack and left foot forwards is a port tack. So if it's not obvious who's more upwind then the person kiting left foot forwards must drop kite and bear off downwind (with your back to the wind - if you are riding toeside then reverse what I have said above)

^ ^ ^

That would be a good idea - maybe a sticker that says "Give way - unless riding toeside in which case don't..."