Hi all,
Hoping to get some clarity about the best way to self rescue - I'm hoping there is a guru out there.
I've been kiting for about 6 years and tonight I had a bit of a disaster.
One of the pulleys on my Switchblade (IDS 10m) broke on one of the leading edge lines. I've watched all the self rescue videos - and tried to wind in one of the brake lines so that the kite was parallel to the wind, but the wind was kinda strong and the kite just kept on picking up and spinning around. Tossed up whether to stay attached to the kite or swim my way along one of the brake lines to the kite - but decided to stay attached and minimise the chance of tangling myself in the lines.
Should I have pulled the absolute depower and wound up the lines once the kite was settled ? Or swam along the brake line ? What I was trying didn't work, and if it wasn't for a fellow kiter helping me out on the beach this might have got messy.
The jungle man
Last month I had a similar problem on a 6m IDs kite. I pulled the ids absolute depower and managed to wind the lines in. The trick is make sure you wind one of the internal lines first By a couple of metres on your bar to ensure the kite won't power up whilst self rescuing. The kite was performing small unpowered loops due to the broken pulley. My local cabrinha dealer replaced they faulty pulley. Steve mentioned last year that inferior metal was used in the pulley design.
You should have swum down the IDS line that was still connected to the kite - the IDS stands for Intelligent Depower System - and even if one lines broken - the other one still depowers the kite fully. Or just pulled your safety - which would have also flagged the kite onto one FRONT line...
If you grab a rear line (or a brake line) - yes, the kite will start 'death looping' and things will get ugly...
Think about it this way - If you were riding along - but you want to depower the kite - are you going to pull on the back lines? No - that will power the kite up more - so the same applies when one lines broken...
Biggest tip i've got for anyone - is to stay calm - if you're freaking out (especially in a rescue situation) then you will almost always do something silly....
Fantastic - thanks for the tips. It was the metal that failed. I'll replace all of them as that was no fun at all.
So if I've understood rightly
- pull the absolute depower
- swim up to the bar
- wind in the middle lines first a couple of loops (and the line thats attached to you)
- wind in the rest till you get to your kite
Let me know if I've got this wrong.
there is apparently an upgrade you can get that uses aluminium slides instead of pulleys
which a mate of mine reckons is pretty good his lines show no signs of wear either unlike
the pulleys which when combined with sand tend to wear the lines after a while.
speak to a cabrinha supplier, i think it only cost him around $30.
Yeah NickT is correct. The pulleys for the front lines can be replaced, with an aluminuim ring, just remove the pulley at the attachment for the front line and replace with the metal rings and add an extra stopper ball for the bridle. This is the standard set up for 2010 kites and is an upgrade for 2009 kites. Pulleys will wear and jam and should be changed each season, or every 6 months if you kite through the winter. My local cab dealer sells the rings as a $30 upgrade.
I've had the pulleys on a 8m fail in 35 knot winter fronts so i know its no fun, it is always the connection to the front line that fails because this is under the most stress. I replaced at the start of this season and as Nick said there are no signs of wear to the bridle.
P.S. In these situations the ids landing line can realease from the security pin on the chicken loop when you release the main safety. So a lot of Cab riders attach their leash to the ids ring rather than the metal part of the chicken loop.
Do the upgrade and its happy days, but while you're at it replace the other 6 pulleys and consider your kite serviced for the next 6 months!!
I just did a line-winding experiment in my hallway and a few things became apparent.
Using a cabrinha sb3 bar (or any bar with separate floats on the rear leaders), I can easily rotate the bar so that I can stay hooked and/or leashed to the chickenloop and wind one or two lines around the bar-ends without tangling the remaining lines. Hard to explain and I don't have the pictures, but I imagine this would be harder with the integrated rubber ends on the ids bars as you would have to bend the rubber over to get the ids line around the ends without tangling the other lines. Also, the ids ends feel soft enough that the load on the lines while winding a slogging kite could pull them over the ends?
Sort of hypothetical for me as I'm happy with my sb3s and should see out this season on them, but for other folk I think it's instructive to do a dry self-rescue (just tie your lines to a fixed object) so you can work out how to stay attached to your kite and get the lines wound onto the bar so as to de-power it and keep them from tangling at the same time.
I had issues with self rescue (and session aborting when the bastard turns turtle) too and could do with some clarification.
Using a 5 line c kite I -
let the bar go flagging to the fifth line.
wrap the the fifth line up to the bar to keep it flagged.
wrap all four lines at the same time......
so when I get near the kite - the fifth line has gone slack (and I think the front lines too)
which leaves the back lines tight and the potential to power up, hasnt happened yet.
I try to make up the slack by winding just the fifth and front lines a few times and then it starts getting messy.
I noticed a ring on one of the back lines that look likes it is for flagging but i am not sure.
so i tried wrapping a backline a couple of times combined with the fifth, so according to above comments i am probably fortunate for light wind nothing went wrong.
Once I get to kite and bar is wrapped and i try to sail it in the lines are still sucking onto my ankles!!
Its a real pain in the ar*se
Interesting topic.
I see the SB3 is mentioned.
I fly one and always connect the safety to the plastic chicken loop line just below the bar, most people seem to do this.
Set up this way if you hit the safety you still remain connected to the kite by the two front lines. Touch wood Ive never had to do a self rescue with it but ive always though that it would be a bitch trying to wind the lines up in this configuration and one would be better off winding on a few meters of one front line first to take the load off the bar.
has anyone got any experience or comments on this.
cheers
depending on the cost of them, that would be worth a call to consumer affairs. Especially considering it was a know "safety" warranty repair they did
I found this video helpful and works fine on my 5 line Rebels.
worked out yesterday i just need to wrap three or four more times on the fifth line after the stopper ball and backlines will stay slack.
cheers for replies, I was probably shown this in my initial lesson but as time goes on not so common sense probably saw me thinking that up to the stopper balll was enough.
My lessons where pretty good, knowing that the kite could be powered up from the back lines being one of the things i learned.
I also learnt alot of respect for saftey from using an old C with limited depower push on the bar. But I wouldnt recomend it. Its far easier and quicker to learn on a bridled bow, having used one once in my second lesson over botany bay way.
cmon bank account grow baby grow!!!!
Hi guys
I'm an instructor up at noosa and run several free clinics on this every year and have on 4 occasions used it my self. I would recomend getting a group together and going to talk to your local school because to explain it on the computer properly is very hard and they proberly wont charge much if anything to show you. Can say most people who have done a full corse with us would have had this technique explained as its part of the IKO teaching, but it is hard to remember when you have only just learnt, and it isnt the fun stuff so people dont tend to practice it. If you are in NOOSA and want a run down on it drop in to Adventure sports and ask us or ring (Will say most of whats been said above is right but dose depend on your kite set up). But remember most importantly that you must fully flag the kite to safety before attempting to wrap lines & do the rescue process.
Hope this helps
GEORGE
Technically, your kite is not completely depowered unless you have one complete length of your leading edge below the bar to your leash on one flagged line. (front or rear doesn't matter).
I think KiteLife has a demo of this on an upcoming season 2 episode.
Every brand is different and it is important that every kiter know their own equipment, (regardless of skill level), and practice it from time to time. Even practice on the beach on a light wind day is beneficial.
Mini 5th lines, IDS or whatever your brand call it do not completely depower the kite. That's why 5 line kites are so good. They depower and flag to a centre line and make self rescue so much more comfortable.
