Rider Level: Intermediate
Location: Woodies Beach 3, Offshore direction
Wind : 21-25Knots

Had my new 7M dice out for its debut yesterday in woodies beach 3 yesterday, in brilliant conditions. Had the leash on suicide setup with a 4 line bar, and trying some basic unhooking and standard hooked in tricks???

Then tried a darkslide and made a complete balls of it, and ended up not completing the kiteloop and crashing it on the water. I actually rode towards the kite slightly which also caused the lines to go slack??? The kite then went onto its back. I was then standing in waist deep water waiting for the kite to come around to a relaunch position, I noticed that one of the bridles had gone around the wing tip, a second later the kite relaunched and immediately went into a continuous kiteloop???.boll0cks??? after 3 quick loops I realized that it was uncorrectable and pulled my quick release, quick release disengaged perfectly. BUT, the kite continued a textbook deathloop and each loop dragged me a meter out to sea??? I stayed connected to the kite only by my leash for about 15 more loops trying to clamber my way up the powered line to try and flag the kite, but couldn???t grip it enough and realized if I got tangled in the slack lines I would be in a whole new world of sh1t???. so I let her go completely???.sickened!!

So I pulled my leash release, and then proceeded to stomp and kick around the beach like a 7 year old, as the kite floated off towards Coogee/Freo direction with bar and lines in tow. In the end an absolute legend (Tom European accent??) that I didn???t know kited out to the floating kite and skillfully kited the whole tangled mess back to shore. Massive thanks again buddy!!!

Anyhow, the reason I???m posting this is not to put sh1t on the dice, I???ve demoed a lot of north Kites (thanks to Action Sports WA) and previously only ridden RPMs but I really really like the dice, however my first experience on the 7m was a bit disconcerting???. So I???m looking for feedback on this:

1.? Has this happened to other people on the dice?
2.? Is the geometry of this kites ???swept wingtips???, combined with large bridal opening make it more susceptible to overlapping into death loop position? This could be more apparent in smaller kite sizes?
3.?Do other kites continue to deathloop after the quick release is pulled?
4.?Is the 5 line configuration for the dice the only proper way to mitigate against this scenario?

Good feedback appreciated.

#woundedpride

Definitely not the best way to spend your first day with a new kite, I cannot comment on the Dice as such as I fly North Evo kites but a few times I have had the 5th line wrap around these. Normally this is when getting too much slack and they fall back on themselves. Sometimes I have been lucky and they have unrolled and other times they have bowtied and then they just loop until you pull the safety. I would probably stay away from 5th line setups on the dice for this reason although others may be able to offer different insights.

This could happen on ANY kite end of story.

If you are the guy I am thinking of riding yesterday you where giving yourself and that kite a beating of a lifetime. If you don't like the dice then switch to the Vegas and enjoy the benefits of having a 5th line. This has happened to us all so take it and get back on the horse.

... my guess is that when the kite lines went slack and fell backwards, there was enough slack in lines to whip the bridle up and over the wing tip as it caught the wind again, probably made worse since its such a small kite and super fast. My old 17m Core did this a couple of times in its life time and now that I think about it, I did it once on my old 2011 Dyno, had me f'ked how it happened but none the less, it happened! A split second here or there it might never have happened at all, who knows!

I reckon things would have been different had you used a 5 line bar and punching out might have just given you the chance to recover.

Sh!t happens kind of thing, get back on the horse is a good idea!!!!

cheers,

Robbie

Well done to Tom, Euros leading by example... I hope you were bought a beer afterwards for your selfless act.

A dark slide in 25 knots as an "intermediate" rider. You have bigger balls than me!

Yeh man I've had all sorts of kites with different safety set ups do this, not fun hey.

Must admit agree with Steve, single front line safety without the high Y is ultimately safer.

I'm not sure you'd call the dice bridals excessively long, tell ya the earlier core kites were ridiculous. The new VX is outrageously long!

I'd say next time try as soon as you eat sht (funny did the exact same thing the other day doing yet another piss poor effort at a dark slide) get some tension on those frontlines ASAP (was easy as I was in waist high water, not so easy when deeper) or do what I did just punched out straight away...got through the slide alright, just pulled the loop way to late and used my face to stop the powered loop fall...ah aha ...get back on the horse and go harder my man!!!

After crashing in the surf with lines going slack my North rebel went into death loop.
The problem I realised as I was being supermanned down the beach was that one of the steering lines was hooked around the bar.
Have had inversions and bowties but kite would fly at least to bodydrag back to beach and sort it out. But that shortening of a steering line I believe was the main cause of the looping kite. So my point being, if you crash and lines are slack make sure the lines are free and clear at the bar end at least and you may be able to recover even with a bow tied kite.

Dammit. I want to buy a Dice. But at the same time I don't like the dual front line safety thing. I think its a crap safety design....

I have only ever had one death loop situation with my single front line flag out and that was because I had not set up the stopper ball on the flag out line far enough away for the biggest kite I fly. The couldn't flag properly and did a slow underpowered deathloop. I had to hit the secondary release and swim in.

Apart from that all the times I have hit the safety my kite has flagged out.

Damaged pride will make you a better/safer kiter.

I think it's because the fifth line is designed to be loaded on norths .would be be great if they could design something like the grenade.

Sounds a bit dicey to me...

Shame, I thought norths elasticated bridle was a good innovation. ( not on dice)

If you can physically bend the wingtips through the bridle on a kite even bending leading edge hard, it can and will happen.

Bridles are clearly too long. All I would say is on kites like these pumping them hard helps but is not a resolution to a problem that has been around since the development of the bow kite. I have had 2 friends nearly killed / drowned by tip wrap death loops. Designs r improving - but still designers are prioritising kite mechanics (levers and links = pullies and bridles) above safety. That is my engineer opinion anyway....

Pump hard.. leash at front/ side..?!

5th rules in high winds, wave grenade ruled

Sometimes. One occasion I have seen someone thrown 30foot onto their head from a tip wrap deathloop... unconscious.. tip wrap at launch
Another ended up in a tree wrap at launch... One dragged up out of water up beach towards rocks for 150 m. Another dragged for 1km+ half drowned.. they could not get to their safety.. they gave up kiting..