Recently I've been using a North Rebel and absolutely love it. But I have encountered two problems when the kite is in the water and because I have only ever used 4 lines kites in the past I have no idea what to do.

1st Problem: After releasing the safety while in the water I find that the kite sits with the leading edge down like it does on the beach (with leading edge closest to you). Does anyone know how to spin the kite around ready to relaunch?

2nd Problem: When the kite drops from the sky due to lack of wind and is lying on its back in the water with the trailing edge closest to you, how do you relaunch the kite? or bring it back to relaunch position with leading edge towards you.

Can anyone give me some advice regarding these two problems?

Puetz said...
... yep, easy, pull one steering line slowly but surely making very sure that the line you pull in is not bunched up near you, push it away from you very carefully. As the kite spins around and catches wind, the excess line you just pulled in will suddenly pull tight and if its around anything to catch ie you, your fingers, harness etc etc., make damn sure its not near you. Once kite has spun around and now on its leading edge, relaunch as normal.

Practice on a light wind day where you can stand in the shallows and watch how the kite behaves, you'll find its easier than you realize.

Good luck,

Robbie

Thanks Robbie. That make sense for the 1st problem but will it work for the 2nd problem?

nugs said...

Puetz said...
... yep, easy, pull one steering line slowly but surely making very sure that the line you pull in is not bunched up near you, push it away from you very carefully. As the kite spins around and catches wind, the excess line you just pulled in will suddenly pull tight and if its around anything to catch ie you, your fingers, harness etc etc., make damn sure its not near you. Once kite has spun around and now on its leading edge, relaunch as normal.

Practice on a light wind day where you can stand in the shallows and watch how the kite behaves, you'll find its easier than you realize.

Good luck,

Robbie

Thanks Robbie. That make sense for the 1st problem but will it work for the 2nd problem?

... to keep my explaination simple, basically do the same for both situation, pull one line and keep pulling one line while carefully keeping the excess well away. Eventually the kite sort of spins on its back then flips and rolls over onto the LE and as said before, you can re-launch as normal when its on the LE.

With the kite completely on its back and straight down wind of you (ie second situation), you can't keep pulling the 5th line into hot launch since a red stopper ball that is above the Y point will eventually hit the Y point and as you keep pulling the 5th, all the lines (front lines including the 5th) will have tension. With bigger kites, the kite will stay there and all you achieve is you get closer to the kite and alot of excess lines around you. As you know, North have one bar and when used with small kites you can achieve the hot launch as Juicerider said but with bigger kites, the kite will just sit there and won't launch. You can be lucky and it takes off but its safer and usually quicker to leave the 5th and pull one steering line as I said above. You may even have to pull in the length of the kite worth of lines to get there, but it will eventually come around.

Next light wind day, have a practice for sure and you'll see how easy it is. Any new kite I get, I always try out how it relaunches in 'my' time. I find out any of its quirks before I find out that its a bitch right while I'm in the sh!t. Know how it behaves well before (a stitch in time will save nine kinda thing).

cheers again,

Robbie