Does anyone have some tips?
Last weekend I dropped my kite and it finished up straight down wind, leading edge towards me and face down. Could not tell if lines were tangled or not. I couldn't get it to move towards the edge of the window and get onto its edge. I tried swimming to the side and pulling on the safety but no luck. It was moderate winds, maybe 15 knots on a 10m 2011.

2nd question, is once I gave up, and decided to self rescue, I swam up to the kite winding up the lines, but could not get it to flip over so I could sit on it and sail it back to the beach. Had a Huge swim dragging it back to the beach and finished up a couple of k's downwind and was lucky not to get caught up in a couple of nasty hazards.

Would love some tips as to what else I could have done, as it didn't feel too good, with Brutus maybe lurking around!

Thanks for your advice.

RPM said...

PS 10m is 15knots isn't really fun BTW. As you have found out so remember that next time. Experience makes you sit crap wind out.

Whaattttttttttt.

Perfect on a surfboard...

I was on a surfboard RPM, but am a learner as you say! Decided to go straight to a surfboard as have wave sailed for 30 years.

But I agree 15 knots is still marginal at my 83 kilos and skill level. Lots of up and down kite and struggling to stay up wind.

Thanks for the tip, after I posted and thinking about, I realized its pretty obvious I have to use the steer line to pull the back of the kite up to get some wind into the kite.
I would never have thought to hauling in 3 meters of steering line though.

Again, thanks for the advice, hope to avoid the big swim with Brutus next time...
Cheers

re Q2
www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Kitesurfing/General/Self-Rescue-question-2/?SearchTerms=leading,edge

Thanks dogfish, theres some good tips in that thread. Appreciated.