Desperate for a kite I went out in some average conditions today, very gusty with a building swell and following tide. Anyway was getting along okay for a while and then the wind just happened to drop out while I was in front of a decent sized wave that had just broken. The kite starts to drop out and before I can get it moving again another wave breaks over top of me and I lose control of the kite, dropping it in the water.

I have a quick try at launching again but another wave comes in and takes it away before it breaks free.. Bugger. Anyway I decide to eject the kite before it takes me for a backward submarine back to shore. I go the first safety and then quick smart with the second one. As I swim back to shore I notice the kite isn't following my master plan, i.e. taking the waves into shore, its port wing tip is holding shape and the cross shore breeze is blowing it down wind at a rate of knots with the current.

Fark, think I've just done my dosh. I get into shore and throw my board up above the high water mark and start to bolt down the beach after my kite. Was thinking at this point, how bloody unfit I've managed to get over winter, and seriously regretting going that extra beer last night. I manage to catch up with the kite and do my best Zohan impersonation to try and get off shore and close to it. No dice, as soon as I got near the wind grabbed it and threw it up and down wind. I swim back to shore, by this time I'm sucking air like it's about to run out.

I see a bit of a sand bank a couple of hundred meters down wind that extends out 10 meters or so which might get me close enough. Dragged my tired arse down and managed to just get ahead of the kite before it passed by the submerged sand bank. You...can..get..it.. It starts to slip past me.. Noooooo! A couple of Zohan dolphin dives and I get a finger on the leading edge just as another gust comes through. If I hadn't got it that time it was off to Double Island point. I grabbed on to it as if I had just saved my favourite dog from the jaws of some 12 foot tiger shark. I planted the kite on the beach and lay down sucking air for a good 20mins thinking how **** getting older is.

The point of this lengthy recount, besides maybe a laugh, is when I finally managed to get my lines out of the sea I could see why the kite kept powering up. The chicken loop/QR had made a nice little knot with the safety line and depower strap, stopping the safety from fully engaging. I reckon if I had held off on deploying the second safety until it started to turn me it would have been the usual swim back to shore without the half marathon down the beach... But I could be wrong. I have seen my fully depowered kite get stuck in a rip and head out to sea against the wind before. Maybe the real lesson was to not go out in cross shore, gusty, head high crap

Good story. I had a marathon like that one up at Port Douglas when my wrist leash popped off. (yes, been kiting a while...) Glad I was young and fitter then. Kite went across the bay 1-2kms and was heading up the beach on the far side when I caught it after a long distance chase. Had another one in the surf south of Byron, Little Rock?, almost lost my board but managed to get it back to the beach before it went round the point. Black spots were closing in on me by the time I got back to the beach.

Dave Whettingsteel said..

Is it possible the safety, qr and depower got tangled up in the water after you let it all go? .

Without a doubt, I think the issue was that I didn't let the safety line draw through the QR enough before I punched out from the second safety. If it had of got tangled after that point it might have knotted in a depowered state. Was the trust 5 line on the Rebel yeah.

Kiteboy dave and kitebt said..

Thanks guys, feels good to share the pain. You always know someone has been in either exactly the same situation or is about to be!

Good descriptive story.Happy to see all ended well.

Salty you are no longer a noob----congrats!

Dl33ta said..

Hey Salty, no worries happy to elaborate. I fired both as the kite was about to be hit by a broken wave. My experience to date is that when that happens it either breaks you or the kite or both. I'd never try and go up the lines in the middle of a decent surf break as you usually end up tangled up in them and that gets scary pretty quick. Take into account as well with waves and current around it can turn into a survival situation pretty quickly. You get the odd flash rips forming as the tide starts to move so you have to be prepared to either sit it out and head back through the break again or swim off to the side and come back in, which can be hard enough just on your own without adding in the board and the kite.

I think you definitely have to be resigned to dumping your kit early on in the surf so you can put yourself into a good place to try and recover it later on, rather than struggling in a bad situation, getting tired and possibly drowning.

Thanks Dl33ta, that's genuinely interesting.

Here in Victoria, the waves in the bay are relatively tiny. There are plenty of reasons why you'd not want to release your kite unless things were mega bad. There are plenty of power lines, cars, people, etc. around that a released kite could hit. Where as I guess, if you're in paradise like yourself, it's more likely to get washed up ashore and receive minimal damage.

Thanks for the explanation, will take note if I ever see serious waves....

Aye, it's called 'suicide' for a reason, right.

I've not been brave/skillful/other enough to try this.