Ben,
I spoke with you on the beach when you "washed up".
Very glad to hear you got the kite back

I think you said you couldn't get to the kite, and I was thinking later that if you have a choice, its easier for a kiter to rescue just a board rather than a kite and lines. So best option is probably to ditch the board, roll up your lines and self rescue with the kite. If there are other kiters around, they will hopefully see you self rescuing and try and grab your board for you

Kudos to the Freo SLSC guys, that is a great effort!

Michael.

Whatthe - You make a good point for sure and believe me, I have had 20/20 hindsight keeping me awake all night!!!

I'm not sure exactly what happenned because I haven't seen my bar and lines again but either something snapped or I accidently pulled my quick release. Either way, at the time, I was sure something had snapped.

I was trying to work out what happenned but was being dragged further out (not a good feeling when I was already 300m+ off the beach) because the kite was sitting on the water to the west of me and still had a bit of power in it. I tried to pull the bar in to see if I could re-launch and in doing so, let go of my board, and was being pulled away from it.

At that point I panicked slightly and decided I'd feel better with my board and no kite than without my board and a kite that was pulling me out to sea and seemed to be busted.

With 20/20 hind sight I would have done things differently.

I know the feeling, its not fun being a fair way offshore with the prospect of being dragged further before you attempt to swim a big "plastic bag" in. Its natural survival instinct to want to swim for shore with board!

I've had a similar experience, got caught by a wave and dumped. Released my safety when i panicked a little in order to swim to the surface. Got to the surface without being tangled in my lines, but couldn't reattach my quick release because i had lost the stopper. My mate picked up my board and I had to body drag unhooked about 500m to shore. I had pretty tired arms at the end!