Ok. Stupid me pumped up my wing again at the car park after deflating my wing at the beach. I screwed on the pump hose to the valve but it didnt screw down all the way. Strange I thought? And it wouldnt unscrew either. So anyway I pumped up the leading edge of my Cabrinha X2 wing and managed to unscrew the pump hose to find it had sand inside the fitting! Then remembered the hose end of the pump had in fact gone into the sand when folding up my wing on the sandy beach.
No wonder it was hard to screw on & unscrew.
F@#k I said to myself for not checking first! And sand has probably pumped into the LE bladder!
So now wondering how long it will take before my leading edge bladder is damaged. And wondering if any Cabrinha X2 LE bladders are sold in Australia. So far I havent found a shop that sells them. If this is the case. Then I will have to find a BRAND that does sell & distribute wing parts for their wings in Australia. No good buying a wing or foil that you cannot fix.
So far Neilpryde has failed in regards to buying parts in Australia.
Hoping Cabrinha isnt the same.

I had a bladder out the other day to repair a hole and noticed sand in there, so I just held the blown up bladder so the valve was the lowest point, pulled the valve down a little more, then tapped the bladder till all the sand made its way to the valve. Opening the valve then blew most of the sand out.
Do that a few times and you should be right :)

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eddshep said..
I had a bladder out the other day to repair a hole and noticed sand in there, so I just held the blown up bladder so the valve was the lowest point, pulled the valve down a little more, then tapped the bladder till all the sand made its way to the valve. Opening the valve then blew most of the sand out.
Do that a few times and you should be right :)

Thank you. I basically did that except I didnt take the bladder out so couldnt see if any sand was there. I looked inside the valve after tapping the Leading Edge. So I dont think much sand entered. Will have to look at how to take it out one day.

i once took the bladder out of one of my kites for some reason and it had like a cup full of sand in it. dunno how it got there or how long it had been in there.

Probably wasnt helping the thing fly, but it didn't pop or leak or anything and im still using it, that kite has had 6 or 7 years of regular use now. So i wouldnt worry too much about a little bit of sand in the bladder.

sand between the bladder and leading edge id imgine would be a lot worse.

That's got to be painful.

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beefarmer said..
i once took the bladder out of one of my kites for some reason and it had like a cup full of sand in it. dunno how it got there or how long it had been in there.

Probably wasnt helping the thing fly, but it didn't pop or leak or anything and im still using it, that kite has had 6 or 7 years of regular use now. So i wouldnt worry too much about a little bit of sand in the bladder.

sand between the bladder and leading edge id imgine would be a lot worse.

Thanks beefarmer! Good to know. Its surprising to see sand inside the pump hose nozzle when the outside of it was clean. So I will make sure that I clean or even rinse it in the water before I ever connected it to the valve ever again.

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windfred said..
That's got to be painful.

Kidney stones are probably worse??? I dunno.