BayAreaKiteboarding.com

Has anyone else had this problem? When self landing in shallow water using the Cabrinha IDS release, the kite depowers and lands on its back as expected, then relaunches inverted and flies at 12 o'clock. Because the bar is now out of reach, and I'm in shallow water, there's not a lot I can do but wait for it to crash back down. Yesterday it went through this a few times and finally crashed right side up with the leading edge facing me. It was only then that I could swim towards the beach knowing the kite would stay down.

This happened yesterday at the lower beach at 3rd while underpowered. While the kite was going through its uncontrolled inverted launch and crash cycles, it was gently pulling me closer to the rocks. If I had been overpowered at the time, I don't think I could have held my position.

Can anyone suggest what can been done to avoid this situation?

May be a question to ask steve, but I'm pretty sure you can just reel the kite in by the IDS line and then by the two front lines.

pls give me a call:
650-483-4520
rather than guessing, it would easier to just talk about what happened and why
steve

Here's the response from Cabrinha:


There is actually something you can do. You can simply pull yourself back to the bar via the landing line and begin winding it around the bar to secure it. Once you have it entirely secured around your control bar, you can continue to wind up all 4 flying lines. Doing so while the kite is upside down (whether hovering or in the water) makes no difference. As long as you have secured the length of the landing line to keep it from paying back out, the kite will not be able to power back up and relaunch. The best way to avoid this from happening in the first place is to steer the kite down to the water at the edge of the window, then activate the primary QR. At this point the kite will generally roll over onto either its back or the LE but while still near the edge of the wind window. This makes the winding up process that much easier. The key here when performing a controlled self landing/self rescue situation is to activate QR1 while the kite is at the edge of the window whenever possible.

We hope this information helps. Please let us know if you have any further questions regarding any of your Cabrinha gear.

Best Regards,
Cabrinha Support