Just a reminder to keep an eye out for Ebay/Gumtree noobs and, if in doubt, step in and have the chat with them.
I was out walking my 1yr old on his trike today. Saw a kite out on the sand at low tide.
Got closer I see lots of unsuccessful launch attempts, and it should be flying, there's a decent 8-10kts on the beach. Got closer and I see some stuff that makes me worried.
Kite is obviously not pumped even close to firm. Laying flat on sand, no curl.
Hot launches dead downwind. Big old C kite too.
Launcher is walking
on the kite. Up and down, the whole length of it. Repeatedly.
Now at this point sun's going down, kid's restless, I've got shoes and long pants on, and these guys are way out. Would have been easy to walk on home, but my conscience got to me.
Get out there "Did you buy an ebay kite today mate?"... "Yeah gumtree $100 how did you know?" says old mate wearing a weight lifting belt with a cable tie ring on the front.
Apart from the weight belt/cable tie harness the rest of the list is pretty funny too:
Bar is about 1m long and thick. No bar ends, lines tied to ends. (must have been about 2003 vintage?)
Kite is an old North C, 18m 4 liner. Must be about the 1st gen 4 liner.
Crispy new though, bright fluoro orange.
Wrist leash. Not hooked up to anything. At all. Kinda tied to the centre of the bar, maybe instead of a chicken loop, because there wasn't one of those.
2 lines only on the bar.
When I got there they were connected to front attachment points only - no steering at all.
Kite not pumped.
And these fellas were confused why it wouldn't fly.
Hopefully they'll listen and not come back next week and break a bone. They seemed to take 'the talk' pretty well, decent friendly guys, just clueless.
Here's a bonus pic of the little fella amusing himself in a stingray hole while I was giving them the talk.
