Green Cherub said...i was down on the river, first time without my gf to catch my kite (yeah i got it good
) haha i had two runs in and out managing to hold reasonably upwind but the inner kook came out and ended up down the beach...faced with a considerable walk i thought to myself, now would be a great time to practice a self rescue...glad i did, learnt a lot but i found my kite, although completely de-powered (bar all the way up the lines) it kept dragging me...should this happen? I was struggling to wrap my lines with all the tension in them, I didn't want to swim towards the kite because it was getting close to shore,
What type of kite was it?
Some kites that flag onto two front lines can land nose down and not fall onto their backs. With those kites, they can stay like that unless you have a way to drop them onto their backs.
This video shows a Cabrinha Nomad on the IDS system. At 30 seconds you can see him tug the IDS line a distance of about one foot just before it lands, and as soon as it lands, he lets it go. I think that is to make it drop on its back.
At 2:45 it says that if the kite doesn't drop onto its back, take a few steps towards it, but that doesn't help in deep water, so I guess you swim as fast as you can toward the kite.
What happens depends a lot on the kite bridle and leading edge shape. I have the Crossbow and it has always dropped ont its back so far.
I also have a Nobile 555 and it can get stuck in the nose down position. Its bar has O**** handles on both back lines, so that would be my next option if swimming didn't work.
If you have the chance to tug the single flagging line to the two front lines just before the kite hits the water and release it as it hits, that should make it drop onto its back.
If I had the chance, I would always drop the kite to the flagging line from one side of the window as that gives it a better chance of ending up in the parked position - like you would place it on the beach.
Its something I would like better answers to myself. I'm happy that the Crossbows work well enough, but it seems to all depend on the geometry of the bridles and the leading edge of the kite.
