...most people who've been kiting a while have had a few.
I Hadn't really thought about it until yesterday. Had a few self rescues & split kites out deep before but nothing too bad.
I binned my 7m pretty hard at Rest on Sunday, split it & popped the connecting tubes between the leading edge & 2 main struts, so it went completely down apart from the 2 outer struts. No biggie. Was out of my depth, the kite was out further than me; there were some good sized lumps rolling in. Before I knew it I got munched by one & ended up tangled in my lines as the kite bin bagged its way past me towards the beach. One of the lines had looped around my neck & pulled tight as a wave hit the kite. Another wave rolled over me and I just managed to get the line from around my neck before coming back up. Times like that it's good to be familiar with where the line cutter is on your harness, closest I've come to using it. With the kite between me & the beach I surfed some waves in on my board until I could touch the bottom. Didn't really think about how sketchy it was until I got out of the water. Good to know that when things go wrong autopilot works on survival mode though. Ha.
Thanks to the guys who kept close & watched me in. Always good to have people around when it's going a bit fudge shaped.
Looks like the 7m is off to see Kitedoc, that'll be all my kite's he's seen within the past 2 months... poop.
Probably time for some new ones.
...anyone else got any experiences to share?