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Hi. I have a Vegas and an old set of North Rhinos, and even after using them for over a year, I sometimes still get the lines confused and crossed over, only to know this once the kite's in the air!
It's annoying as hell, cause I have to land it and redo the entire thing again.
The worst is the LH (left hand) side of the kite or the wing-tip of the kite that's closest to me as I walk up separating the lines. I usually lay the lines at right-angles to the kite (due to narrow beach area) and walk the lines and connect them. Easy peasy, but with C kites that don't have bridles, I sometimes get the front lines crossed over the back lines. What I have to remember, is front-right-hand-line goes OVER the rear-right-hand-line. Is that right?
center is center
inner centers run either side of center
outside lines (bar ends) go outside those.
connect center
then connect outsides
then connect inner centers.... (hopefully having the outside lines a little bit off the ground will naturally make your mind put them under them)
Piece of pipe insulation
Slice 5 cuts
After your session slip your line ends into slice then fig 8 your bar as normal
Lay out your lines downwind. That way you can see all lines are properly connected and straight before you launch. Don't forget that the bar is lying face down so left and right are back to front on the ground.
When rigging up from the side I try to imagine the kite sitting up ready to be launched and look at all the lines from the bottom up. They will be bottom tip, bottom main line, top main line, top tip. Dropping the kite from that position directly face down means rigging up from the furthest point to the closest point (furthest tip, furthest main line, centre (if any),closest main line, closest tip). Lay out the lines behind the kite with the bar the right way up and the corresponding lines should now be in order going away from kite. Keep imagining the kite being lifted up into launch position and making sure you are rigging from bottom up. Connecting each line in turn from bottom (furthest) to top (closest) means that EVERY line sits over top of the lines already connected. This makes it super easy to pick up the line, walk over anything connected, and attach to the relevant kite position.
The good thing about thinking bottom up instead of left-to-right is that it makes rigging up with lines running out to the left or to the right the same process.
HTH
Colour coding is essential. Add some short leader lines to your rear lines, red for port, green for starboard. If the kite does not have coloured pigtails then change them. Of course, make sure the front lines also have equal length leaders. With colour coding red is always connected to red and green always to green.
On another note, if you don't know how old the lines are it would not hurt to replace them with different coloured lines. Most modern lines come in colours (eg front lines - grey, left line - red, right line - blue) . If they look a bit fluffy and the ends a bit frayed get rid of them. A broken line can be serious.
When I was using 5 line kites I'd have to run out the 2 outer lines 1st
then the 3 center lines on there own .
Colour code the lines and connections.
Change catpaw direcrion on either front or back so you cant mix them up
My apologies for not coming back sooner to say big thanks for all your replies!
Especially @VRBones. I now don't get them messed up at all. Just connect bottom up, outters first then front lines and it's bomb proof! Da bomb!
Cheers
