in hindsight i know what i did was incredibility stupid but i thought i should share my tale just in case any one is as dumb as me.

I was out at point walter on Thursday ... the last of our 4 day wind bender and on the offshore side about 150 meters from the beach i crashed my kite strangely and it inverted... then kinda tied itself in a bow... i could not get it to relaunch and was getting dragged further away from the beach.

so i thought i would grab my lines use them to get close to the kite, then everything would be wonderful and merry and the kite would relaunch and i could work my way back up wind...

of course swimming up to my kite i managed to get the lose lines wrapped around my legs and my harness.. which i didn't realize at the time.

got to my kite sure enough i got it untied and let it go. looked down and just thought bollox... i have a cross bow 2 which is great for relaunching and obviously one of the outer lines was shorter than the other when it was wrapped around my legs and the kite relaunched as i acted like a sea anchor and went straight down under water then the kite would crash letting me get back for air then would just take off again.

I have honestly never been so scared in my life this continued for about 4 minutes... i was so so tired and my lungs burned so much, i was very very lucky that there was a charter boat that saw me and what was happening they literally saved my life by the time they got there i was so physically exhausted i couldn't even get my self up on the boat they had to lift me.

now i was even luckier that this boat was hired out by very drunk people with HOT Italian exchange students on board... when i regained my strength they made sure i drowned my sorrows with about 5 corona's and pictures of hot women with their arms around me

they where nice enough to drop me back at the beach, and thanks to another kiter i didn't even lose my board.

My day ... doesn't end there. I thought i want to get back out, get back on the horse, so i untangled my lines pumped back up my kite adn went back out. I had a great couple of runs... they the wind dropped from 18 knots down to about 8 knots... i again was on the offshore side when this happened and couldn't not get back up wind enough to get back to the beach. *sigh* another nice kiter walked up amongst the trees .. the only place i could get to, and stood in the water so i could land my kite to him and walk it back in.

Just as im bringing it down. a little gust of wind comes and knocks me off balance and my kite instead of landing near him ended up in the trees... grr.. so a little annoyed i take of my lines.. climb the tree undo my lines get my kite down with no tears thank god. then im winding up my lines using my finger to keep them straight and there is a European wasp that decided to take residence on one of my lines, to top my day off he or she bites my finger and i end up having a rash all the way up my arm for another 2 days.

THEN just as i pack up everything the wind comes howling in at about 18 -20 knots NW more than enough to get myself back to the beach. god hates me i think. and the guy who came out to help me because the wind switched from NE to NW had his kite on the beach and by the time we got back was rolling through the water towards melville. I am so sorry mate that my bad day rubbed off on you and if you read this can u let me know if you got your kite back?

i totally understand that this was all my own fault for being so goddamn stupid and breaking some very simple rules

(1) stay onshore or always in a place that it would be easy to get back to some kind of land :) and if your not don't try tricks you don't normally pull off like like unhooked kite loop transitions.

(2) don't ever leave your lines slack, i think even if i didn't wrap up in them i was dreaming to think that they wouldn't tangle amongst themselves.

(3) always carry a hook knife

I learnt this when I got dumped by a big wave and got wrapped up in my lines a couple of years back. No worse feeling than being taken on a ride without air. It took nearly 6 months before I had the balls to get back onto the water after I almost drowned and got dragged over rocks.

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Originally posted by kitecrazzzy

actually, i tried using the hook knife that comes with my harness and it broke before it cut the line.

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Hmmm...thats not too comforting. Might be worth buying a parachuting one then.

yeh i lost mine a couple of days ago i thought i would never be in a situation where i would cut my lines at a 100 each... i was wrong :)

hey nick thanks for the advice ... that makes sense i will try that next time...i'm sure there will be a next time... im glad im not dead

mmmmm foreign exchange students....things aren't all bad good to hear your ok dude. It's comforting to know there are still good people out there that are willing to lend a hand.

but theres still more.... lol seemed as though u got some bad karma coming back. Perhaps you should make a list and start crossing off everything bad you've ever done?

A hook knife is a good investment, something I have been too lazy to organise but this post is a motivator. I had the same expereince in squally winds and good size swell. Had a big rain cloud come through once. Both lines on one side snapped on the kite after it crashed then ripped through the powerzone in a gust (bloody big gust to snap two lines ey). The kite went down then a 6ft set picked me up and landed me on the other two lines. After hitting all the safety's before the wave pulled the kite I found i was literally tied up in the lines both the snapped ones and the unsnapped ones. The wave pulled the kite pulling my arms to my waist like that old comic when people are tied to a train line, bad feeling when ur getting dragged underwater without the control of ur arms. It seemed the more i struggled to get free the more worn out i was, this created panic which lowers rational thinking making you even more tangled. Combing this with getting dumped by massive waves the situation was a life or death one. I Managed to untangle and let my kite fly away (best site in the world watching that biatch of a piece of equipment that had let me down fly away). By this stage I was in no state to swim back to the beach against the numerous rips and big swell. Lucky I wear a dakine impact harness (life jacket and harness combo) so when the waves smashed me I just rolled in a ball and slowly floated to the surface. Eventually I made it back to the beach crawling up the sand and laying down like someone in a shipwreck movie.

Moral of this and havox story... knife and if u can impact vest. That extra flotation in the surf saved my life by providing me with the extra strength it would have taken to stay afloat and swim past the rip to get back to the beach.

Glad to hear everything ended up alright and as a new kiter I appreciate hearing things that might possibly go wrong. Any chance of getting some pictures of the safety leash arrangement your advocating Gruzei and does anyone know of a good hook knife supplier.

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Originally posted by paulio

Havox your real name isnt Frank Spencer is it???

At least your OK

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Haa Haa
Also glad u ok,I had a Frank Spencer surf session one day.I was having a crap surf at Noosa boiling pot an the water was really dirty an the crowd was just too much for the amount of waves coming through,so I take one too deep too close to the rocks out of frustration and end up right in the impact zone so I go to duck dive in the dirty coloured water an head butt a rock an crease the nose on my near new board
So I am over it now an think I'm outta here,with blood streaming down my face I let a wave carrie me laying down on my board to the flat rock where you get in an out,but my fins hit some rocks an get ripped out in the process cause of the dirty water an real low tide..arrrgh
and then I get back to my car and find a freakin $75 parking fine.....just stay home some days

As Murphy would testify the s**t always goes down when you know the conditions aren't right, but the "just one more quick run" keeps playing over in your head.

I have slowly (and a little painfully) learnt to say shut the hell up you dim-witted adrenalin fiend to this voice in my melon. Being in plaster for a while certainly helps cement this in the greymatter.

Glad your still here and a little wiser bud. Good effort posting too.

Hopefully you learnt the most important lesson of all - keep a waterproof pen handy at all times in case a boat load of hotties rescues me!!

Havox,

glad to hear you survived what sounds like an absolutely f'ken disaster. Now that you are ok, lets get to the important lesson here - did you get any snaps of these exchange students???

Juddy

I had one of those experiences (sort of anyway).

Up at lano about 3.5 years ago and dropped the 16m in about 15 knots. Unfortunately this particular kite (2002 RRD supertype) was unbelievably crap at relaunching, and when I say unbelievably crap, I mean there is no chance of relaunching it...ever.
Anyway, I thought I'd just drift to shore and then collect the kite once I hit the beach. About 30m from the saftey beach I came across a mooring buoy which I though I would just push down as I went over it. As I did, somehow the chicken rope, leash line and bar got tangled around my ankle and the buoy...the kite still sitting in the water directly downwind of me (I think that the 1 line kill safety engaged). Being in the bay, it quite gusty, so with every gust, the lines and bar would get tighter around my ankle. I tried moving the anchor,pulling the lines in to get some slack but the wind was too strong...I started losing feeling in my foot after a minute or so. I was there for about 5 minutes before my 65 year old hero in his underwear and carrying a set of gold clubs picked up the kite. No bikini-clad European exchange students but a god-send nonetheless!

Get back out there Havox!

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Originally posted by sandgroper

Good post havoc.

A knife may be worthwhile, but its not a panacea. I'd like to know if anyone has successfully used a knife to get out of a kiting disaster. Seems to me they just end up in the water.

When I got my kite into a loop of death/death roll/tea bag situation earlier this year, I tried to pull safety release (first time for real). After the third dunking I realised I was going to drown before I ever found it (BTW, I now have a new safety release that doesnt need you to look for it). Fortunately my PLV2 was not bowtied and I just grabbed the centre lines and hung on - instant depower.

Like looking for safety release, using a knife also takes time, time you may not have. It needs to be extremely sharp, and in a difficult situation could cause you serious injury instead of getting you out of trouble.

Also all those lost knives are probably near the beach waiting for someone to step on.

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Its up to YOU before you go out to rehears where your safety is until its drilled into ya brain as a reflex. I only do wave riding and not knowing where ur safety is as an instant reflex is suicide for ur kite and possibly u. Also, those knives arent knives as such, they have a triangle inside them that u slide ur line into which cuts it so u dont stab urself in the process (or other peoples feet).

Again, if u take a knife with you rehurse 5 to 10 times on the beach before u go out. It needs to be in your brain as a reflex so u can act QUICK otherwise theres no point in taking one out. sh1t starts to stink pretty quick, just like things can go bad real quick. BE PREPARED and you will extend your's and your kites life.

taxi, what you and eco say makes real good sense to me.

Eco, can you please tell me where you put your hook knife?

Its about time we had a decent thread on here well done educational and informative.

Better then a lot of the other ***t we have had on here recentley

Thanks Eco, recon that having a pouch or velco type thingy somewhere on the harness is a good idea. I'll probably never get in a real nasty situation as I'm such a sissy, but hey one never knows, the best stuff is always a bit scarry.