kitelements said...
from what i gather, he was out in the water, his kite start kitelooping and Florian was dragged under waters for a long period of time.
he couldnt or wasnt able to release the safety. and unfortunatly drowned, by the time his mate came to help him .
Very sad news. At least he was doing what he loved.
Hard though it is to ask, it would be a fitting tribute to his memory to have as much information about this incident come out as possible. Can we have more details please:
What kite was he flying ?
What kind of safety release mechanism ?
Why didnt it work ?
Weather conditions ?
Location specifics if relevant (shallow or deep water?)
...and anything else of relevance.
This same scenario happened to me about 18 months ago - my PL VenomII started kitelooping and teabagging me and I couldnt find the safety release (poor design), but after the third head first dunking I managed to think my way out of it and just grabbed the front lines where they merge with the main rope (I had about 1 second pause between loops) and with full depower of my body weight - it auto zenith'ed (this is a feature unique to PL kites) on the next loop .
This auto-zenith feature pretty well saved me. I wont easily be persuaded away from PL kites even though the factory supplied velcro saftey release system is complete and deadly dangerous crap. I replaced it with the (red) top hat system and that at least means I dont have to look to see where the release is. Much better, but not perfect.