Welcome to Kitesurf College. In this video, we’re going to look at several
kitsurfing accidents, more commonly known as kitemares.
This is NOT for shock value, and cheap entertainment, which is often the case with compilations.
Rather, we’re going to see what we can learn from each one, and hopefully make it so that
these accidents don’t happen in the future. Let’s get started.
Here, the chicken loop was ejected. You would expect the kite to flag out, but instead it
starts looping, and keeps looping. In fact, the only reason it stops is because
the kite flies down into the wind shadow behind this pier.
So what caused the kite to behave like this? Way before the accident, you can see the center
lines and safety line are knotted around the bar.
This means the bar is not free to travel along the safety line, which is required to flag
out the kite. Instead, the bar is locked in place.
Plus the knot on the bar, tilts the bar to the left which keeps the kite steering to
the left. One huge lesson here, is the importance of
line inspection. You should be able to see that your lines
are not tangled. Center lines pass through the bar to the leading
edge unobstructed. Steering lines should pass from the bar ends
to the wing tips, unobstructed. You should do this visual check often, and
always before launching. Even before relaunching or self-launching
you need to look and check that those lines are in order.
Another fundamental lesson here, is to always be prepared with your next safety step.
So, you’ve ejected your chicken loop, get ready to use the leash eject. Hold onto it
and wait to see what happens with your kite. If the kite starts dragging you, it’s probably
too late to start searching for your leash eject.
Let’s look at another kitemare. This is a nasty one. I don’t think any other
incident has done more damage to the reputation of kitesurfing.
I’ve spoken to the kiter in this video, and I’m happy to say he survived.
He informed me that a pulley malfunctioned on his kite, and presumably that send the
kite steering to one side. For me, however, the big lesson here is actually
about knowing your limits. When you finish your lessons, you’re ready
to kite, but you’re not ready to kite in all conditions.
You have to build up your years and years of experience and then gradually you’ll
be ready for stronger wind. In this video we have tropical storm conditions.
In that kind of wind, if something goes wrong, it goes wrong quickly.
You can see there’s a window of only a few seconds where the kiter could have used his
safeties. In your first few years of kiting, you haven’t
seen it all and the kite can surprise you from time to time, and you will be slower
to react. Let’s move on to the next video.
So the kiter here got launched even with the bar out.
There’s a clue to what caused this at the start of the video.
We get a glimpse upwind of the kiter, and can see buildings and trees there.
That means the wind is passing around these obstacles before reaching the kite.
That makes the wind changeable and gusty. Wind like this is very dangerous unless you
know how to handle it. That’s a big reason kiters look for an on-shore
wind, since this wind passes over the ocean without obstructions.
Let’s move on to the next video. This is a nice clear video, as you can really
see what’s going on. The right steering line is tucked behind the
bar, which adds extra tension and steers the kite to the right.
The kiter does a good job of counter steering with the left to slow the kite, and then ejects
the chicken loop just in time. Once again, this highlights the importance
of line inspection. Your lines should be completely unobstructed.
This video also shows how risky launching a kite can be.
The moment when you launch is when you find out if your kite’s flying well or not.
And, it’s very common that there can be an issue.
The kite can surprise you as it launches. For that reason, I strongly recommend you
learn to fly with one hand, so that your other hand can be ready on the chicken loop eject
during a launch – or a relaunch or a self launch.
Another way to reduce the risks when you have flatwater conditions like this, is to ask
your launcher to walk your kite upwind into the water, and then you can do your launch
there far away from hazards. The kiter here was going for a straight jump
without rotation. However, he starts to rotate, panic sets in
and he starts steering the bar. He steers so much in fact that the kite loops.
He then accelerates and lands so hard he’s knocked out.
If there weren’t other people close by, this could have been fatal.
So what can be done to avoid this? If you’re disorientated in the air, you
have 2 choices. If you know for sure that the kite is near
12, you can hold the bar in, and keep it completely straight.
This will keep the kite above your head, give you some lift and help you glide back down.
If you have no idea where the kite is, then it’s usually better to let go of the bar.
If you do this before gaining height, the landing should be fine.
What you never want to do while disorientated is steer the bar.
My second tip on avoiding this, is to get lots of practice in light wind.
In light wind, mistakes are far less costly. You can work on thousands of jumps and rotations
in light wind and iron out all of your mistakes and problems.
Let’s move on to the next kitemare. This is a really nasty accident, but there
are plenty of ways to avoid it. Simply connecting the leash to the front or
side of the harness, would have given him a good chance of ejecting that leash before
getting dragged into the car park. With the leash attached to the back of the
harness it’s almost impossible to eject it once the kite powers up.
Also, it looks like his leash is connected in suicide mode.
People use suicide mode to keep the kite flying if they drop the bar while working on unhooked
tricks. But there’s no good reason to be on the beach, near hazards, in strong wind,
in suicide mode. Also, semi-suicide mode, might have been a
bit safer, as this still allows the kite to flag out if the chicken loop opens up.
Of course, the vast majority of kiters should be leashing onto the safety line as normal.
Let’s look at
what caused this accident. The kiter self launches. The kite aims upwards
from the self launch and therefore climbs quickly.
The kiter sees the kite climbing, so steers right to keep the kite down.
However, the bar is the wrong way round. So actually he’s steering the wrong way.
The kite then hits the ground and stops moving for a moment.
However, the kiter is still moving downwind. The allows him to travel over the top of his
own lines, which leads to the bar getting jammed under his harness hook.
This is a really bad situations. With the right side of the bar stuck under
the harness the kite keeps steering to the right.
And with the bar jammed in place, the chicken loop eject and the leash eject are ineffective.
By this stage, the only solution is to stop the kite from turning.
To stop the kite turning, you need to countersteer. To stop the kite turning to the right, you
can pull hard on the left line. The kite will then sit still on the sand.
Allowing you to unhook the bar, or wait for someone to grab the kite.
However, this is not the lesson I want you to take from this.
It’s far more important that you learn how to avoid getting in this situation in the
first place. As they say, prevention is better than cure.
The first way to avoid this accident, would be to do an assisted launch.
With someone holding your kite you have plenty of time to check your lines.
The accident could have also been avoided simply by letting go of the bar for a moment.
You don’t need to cling to the bar when you launch a kite. Let the bar go, assess
the kite, and then fly it. Also, it’s very important to launch using
one hand, so you can keep your spare hand ready by the chicken loop eject.
These simple habits will get drilled into you early on in lessons, so that you don’t
have to come face to face with a death loop like this.
That’s all of my kitemares for now. If you’ve seen any kitemares that you’d
like explained, please put the links into the comments below as I will make another
kitemares video. Thankyou very much watching and safe kiting
to all of you.