How easy to break an ankle in shallow water!

Always feels cruel to comment on someone's accident. But while smaller or no fins make a difference it is important to keep the kite closer to the zenit when riding over shallows. Ride with just enough speed but obviously very controlled lowish speed preferably. Board flat, but avoid nose dives. And avoid being underpowered - it looks like they guy needed to sine the kite which is not a good idea when in the shallows. Stay away from shallow areas anyway as if you don't break your ankle you may break your neck as a result of a fall.

I kite in shallows sandy area like that all the time. I keep kite high when it looks dry and edge the board otherwise if you have the board flat you can get sucked down due to the curved bottom of the board, the old spoon trick placed under a running tap. Feel your pain hope you get back into it ASAP. I keep fins on and just slowly sand them off.

Me either

He deserves a broken ankle just for posting that video

PSA: Skip to 7 minutes

My take: With all sports sometimes you get unlucky.

I've kited shallows for years, getting so shallow you have to ride board flat and in poo stance in an inch of water, then bracing and riding over dry sand, it's all fine even with fins if you don't get unlucky and you keep the speed and power up, kite high.

Then I go and have a bearing split on a skateboard and f@ck my elbow royally, 2 operations, 2 metal straps, 12 screws and 2 years recovery. Unlucky.

I wont watch the vid, but this post is worthy of my input.

Happened to me and also if your instinct is the hand out reflex action you wrist will break just as easy.

Recently did the new instructor course and I was the only one to speak up about this when all the other students thought the prefered and safest method was shallow water instructing. I had to argue my point with them and doubtful they listened.

I raised other safety concerns in regards to the course and was told my the manager of Kite Boarding Aus that I was obsessed about safety and my view was completely disregarded.

As a consequence I will be talking to the Rockingham council in regards to my concerns.

Someone has to speak for the dead here. I wont be checking replies so PM me if you want as Im bring about change, I dont like it either but they should of listened when I was prepared to help with the ITC.

I kite in shallow water a lot. Quite a skill. But basically it is just edge the board, keep it around 11 and keep your bindings loose. I am very familiar with my spot so I know where the banks are. On the flip side, banks shift as easily as the wind. Good fun for me though. I live close to a tidal flat so I am riding in 15cm water for more than a kilometer literally.

Bit late to the discussion, but the guy in the video is actually me.

It took me quite a few months before I could stand to look at the footage I knew I'd captured. I'd done some pretty serious damage to my ankle, having dislocated and broken two bones and torn ligaments off and so on. But I decided to post the video so other's might be able to avoid similar accidents, because you don't want to have to learn this lesson by having the experience yourself...trust me, I have plates in my ankle which are a constant reminder.

I still feel like that a lot of what happened was just unlucky, but really, the risks are always there in shallow water and I don't care how much experience you think you have, too many things you can't assess for can go wrong quite easily.

Here's some of the background story (I'd been out for a few hours in deeper water and the tide was coming in, I was heading home).

I was actually heading in for the day through a sketchy bit of shallow water and my kite caught a gust of wind that I wasn't expecting just as I was slowing down and preparing to stop. I decided to go with it because I was flat planing at that particular moment over a shallow part, rather than edging and leaning back and hopefully make it over a shallow bit and THEN stop. That didn't happen though, and I just came to an abrupt stop when the front fins found sand.

It's probably worth noting that the board I was riding wasn't my regular my main board (North Jaime 139), which has a high rocker but isn't very nice to ride in shallow water...though it is safer as it tends to glide for a bit over sand if you take the fins off, which I had. This particular day I had gone out without that board and was using a board with low rocker and has very little flex, perfect for shallow water... but, I hadn't taken the fins off, bummer.
So that was it really, kite powered up at a moment I was preparing to stop and I hit sand very fast and hard.

My feet did easily slip out of the binding's, but the angle I hit sand didn't care. My left foot slid out, but my right foot stayed where it was and the full force of the impact went straight through my right ankle perpendicular to the board, and snap!

If I had my other board with me instead, I might have been fine, but maybe not.

This is totally 'my' opinion, but my take away message would be the following:

1. Try not to get to the point where you're feeling fatigued; I was heading home because I was getting a bit tired, but that might not have been early enough. I believe I could have been distracted/fatigued navigating around the shallows as the wind direction was more onshore coming back the other direction, making edging harder as I moved towards the shallow area's.

2. Take the fins off if you are in shallow water, or just avoid altogether. Mistakes can happen to anyone, and they are more likely to hurt more in shallow water when they happen.

3. Recovery for a broken ankle is incredibly long and painful, you really want to avoid it. So try to avoid the combination of gusty winds and shallow water. You can't predict every wind change and random gust and so on, but if you notice those two combinations coming together and you can avoid it, try.

Photo was taken 14 days after relocating my dislocated foot, and before surgery.


Take care out there and be safe.