I had a novel experience kiting yesterday which I thought I'd share as it was not a scenario I had anticipated. Was wave riding up the coast, fell off, was body dragging back to board, then noticed lines had gotten caught on an orange ocean buoy which then anchored the kite in strong winds with considerable force. I was also then anchored to buoy which was now being pulled underwater by lateral pull from the kite. I used my safety release to get completely free but bar/lines were still caught on buoy which I eventually released, although a knife might have been handy. Lessons learnt: steer clear of ocean buoys and consider getting a knife if you don't already. Not sure if others have had similar experiences?

Helped a friend, many years ago, who whilst learning, dropped his kite with lines either side of a buoy. He got dragged into it and suffered several cuts from barnacles.

Don't most harnesses come with a line cutter inbuilt in them?

They usually do.. I checked mine yesterday (don't know why) and it had fallen out! Cue trip to the shop, 15 bucks..

Not so novel... had a buoy get tangles in the high-Y of my Crossbow; was weighted down with a bag, so it kept getting pulled pint of the water. Naturally, my knife had gone AWOL too. By the time I freed the buoy, my board had drifted off up the river... suspiciously disappearing, even though I went searching as soon as I got to the beach. ****ing fisherman assholes.

Sounds a little scary, especially the part where the angle of the kite pulling started to take the buoy, and you, under water.

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Sauce said...
They usually do.. I checked mine yesterday (don't know why) and it had fallen out! Cue trip to the shop, 15 bucks..

Wrong, some do some don't, always check your knife is in it's pouch, cheapest and most important piece of kiting equip IMHO
I always post a reminder pre season
$15 will cover it

I had similar experience a few years back with on line caught over a bouy - not much fun when you are getting pulled under the water as the kite is being pulled towards the beach..

I was lucky and got it over a mid-sized bouy without needing to release.

Yep happened to me, pretty sh1t experience.

The first time I was in this situation I was fine just pulled the line over the boy so the last time this happened I thought, no worries will be easy. However I got the buoy and couldn't free the tangled line. I started getting dragged under, panicked a bit because I was in my boots and I knew my safety leash doesn't release very well so I ended up unhooking and unclipping the leash.

Then I took my boots off, tried to keep board from drifting into kite whilst trying to untie line from buoy but was too deep and I couldn't see anything. Pretty tired at this stage so i swam to the shore and droped my board off then swam back to kite. (At the start the kite kept moving around the wind window but thankfully had stopped and kite was straight downwind not really moving). So then I deflate the kite a little bit, careful not to let water in, detached the lines and swam back to the shore with the kite. Finally then swam back out where the buoy is now back on the surface and then unwrapped the lines.

I was pretty tired after this stage but shows how having a decent level of fitness is very useful in some situations. Moral of the story f*ck them buoys.

We have about 7 hooked shark buoys (drum lines) off our main kiting beach and although I’m not to bad now when I started kitesurfing I would be kiting perfectly until I got anywhere near those buoys, my legs would start going wonky, my kite control would drop off and I could feel my back end start clenching … The mind started playing games on me at the thought of the hook below with a chunk of meat on it trying to catch a shark...