Hi stan1169,
It's good to see you're interested in learning the most poorly taught skill of kiteboarding: self- rescue. If you already had professional lessons, you *should* already be fully competent at this, meaning you had at least one chance to practice it during your lesson, alone, in deep water...If you didn't then you should simply go back and get a free lesson on practical self-rescue or ask to get your money back.
Chances are, like most people who
paid for lessons, that you either never done it in your lessons or simply had a demonstration of it, which is obviously not enough.
All self-rescue videos you see Online where people are wrapping their lines are done in low to very low winds. To do this safely you obviously need to wrap your safety line around the bar and secure it correctly to the bar first, ensuring you have a well flagged out kite and a safety system that actually works.
In a fairy tale world, you would obviously like to have all your lines neatly wrapped around the bar for any self-rescue in any situation/wind conditions. The reality is unfortunately very different. Wrapping your lines gets exponentially harder (and more dangerous) as the wind increases...this starts to be difficult even in as little as 15 knots, so you can imagine what it's like in 20 knots...25 knots, etc.
Of course most videos, most instructors and most people on this forum will say: ''yeah, just wrap your lines''...as if there is nothing to it. Well, my best advice is: get out there the next time it's more than 20 knots and give it a try...then come back and comment about your experience.
If you can use your kite as sail and the winds are fairly strong, you are wasting your time wrapping your lines. Simply follow the safety line hand-over-hand, all the way to the kite (no need to secure it around the bar) and then use the kite as a sail. Worried about lines? Here's the secret: don't kick your feet at all, don't swim at all, you will have very few tangles. This method of course takes the right technique and tuition. If done correctly it's simply the quickest, safest and most useful self-rescue technique you will ever learn and be able to repeat many times. We teach this method in our school every day with all students with 100% success rate, no matter the wind conditions. If you're still worried about lines floating around when you get to the kite, then simply sit on your kite, grab the bar and wrap the lines around the bar in any way you like. It won't be pretty but you won't have any lines laying around and you would've got to your kite in a few seconds instead of a few minutes.
However, if
you can't use your kite as sail, i.e. kite is punctured, wind is off-shore or died off completely, then wrapping your lines is
MUCH better idea, and would be easy (and safe) to do if no wind or kite is punctured. In those scenarios you will most likely be rescued by a boat or have to swim long distances to the shore, in which case you wouldn't want to have line laying around.
During the Xmas holidays I noticed a guy getting in trouble and starting to wrap his lines in 30-35 knots...he most likely did something wrong during the process of wrapping his lines and the kite started to loop indefinitely, dragging him back on land. He was just getting smashed on the sand yelling for help. I kited back to shore, got to him and had to release the kite entirely from him as he was too much in shock to release his own kite and just begging for help...
There are simply too many steps involved in wrapping your lines safely for most newbies to be able to replicate it safely and efficiently in the real world after having had only a simple demonstration from the instructor...especially in strong winds. Wrapping your lines in such strong winds successfully, safely and quickly would put you in the
Expert category and you would need many hours of training to be able to achieve this. Even I can't do this in strong winds and I'm the certified instructor.... you can read about my experiment here:
www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Kitesurfing/General/Self-rescue-experiment-methods-comparison/ and of course the debate that follows.
After 6 years of teaching/kiting almost every windy day, I yet haven't seen anyone easily and successfully wrap their lines and sail back to the shore in strong winds at my local beach, which is deep water, often side-shore winds and 20-25 knots+ most good days.
In summary, it doesn't really matter which method you choose to self-rescue, what really matters is that you are actually
competent at it and able to get yourself out of trouble in various conditions/scenarios.
Christian
