tarzan said...
Hey Saffer, I'm fascinated by your tales of the two squalls. I've been kiting for about 7 years now and haven't ever seen anything that vicious (apart from a honking 50 knots down at Sandy point but thats a different story...). Lucky me by the sounds of things.
Was there anything unusual about those days to look out for ? Any forecast changes or fronts coming through - or just freaks of nature ? Trying to make sure I can do this for at least another 7 years !
One of them was inland in South Africa. Perfectly normal day, no mist or anything else suspicious to give us any clue as to what was coming. It was one of those wrong place, wrong time kind of scenarios like getting a small twister in Aus which do happen on occasion. I've never seen anything like this particular spike. It didn't progressively get stronger, it just went from 18 knots up to 35-40 in a second or two. I was busy gybing at the time so I just got picked straight up and I was 5m up in the air before I could even pull my safety. I reckon I covered 50m of water in no time because the wind was direct onshore and I was fairly far out and when I landed I could walk in to shore. It happens so quickly you don't have time to do anything.
The second was at brighton. Extremely hot day about 4 years back, around the 42 degree mark. Cold change came in and temp dropped by 20 degrees in 20 minutes and wind settled in at about 15-18 knots. I waited about 30 minutes for the wind to settle to be on the safe side (I'm usually pretty cautious) and then went on the water. About half an hour on the water the wind spiked big time. Sunny day so no cloud warning. Spike dropped after about 15 minutes to a more respectable 25 knots. I think part of the problem on that particular day was the high temps with the cold change. In retrospect, this particular one was quite survivable. The wind didn't suddenly jump to 45, it picked up over the space of about 30-60 seconds so you had the chance to get ready for it. I guess I put the kite low expecting it just to be a gust but it just kept getting stronger and stronger until my kite was touching the water and I was still riding on the board heading towards shore planing with the kite max depowered. I was planning on dumping my kite when I hit shore, but someone grabbed it.
In my experience, you generally have a chance to react with the kind of conditions we experience in Melbourne if you're an experienced rider. The danger is really to newbies who lose control of their kites when a big gust hits and then react in a manner which endangers themselves like grabbing the wrong side of the bar.
