Hey All,
Just thought I'd retell a quick story from today, 2.30pm at Dolls Point, Sydney's South West End of Botany Bay. Wind strength about 25'ish gusting to 30 from the South (cross on).
Person out on a Twin Tip near Eastern Rock Groin on a 10M.
After watching the person struggling for about 10 minutes it became clear they were not having a good time of it, not making ground up wind, short taking to the beach and rapidly being blow towards the junction of the concrete walkway and the groin (being the most Easterly point) down wind of their start point.
Short version; they reached the shore and parked their kite at 12 o'clock right near the large pine tree and houses less than 20 meters away inshore. Dumped their board on the windward shore of the groin and walked to the leeward shore to try to self land their kite in 25 to 30+ knots into the water, without releasing their QR.
I took a walk down to them to see if I could help and found a kiter trying to self land their kite in the lee of the groin into the water.
Doesn't sound like anything? Until you realise next landfall for this person was the large land mass to the North used for commercial flight purposes.
The individual had attracted the attention of a member of the public, a man walking by with a lady had become interested in wanting to help him land his kite and tried to help by jumping in. A couple of quick words sorted it, once in ear shot, plus the "Please Pull your QR and swim in" the 20m to shore, pack down your gear and walk back to your start point.
What was of severe concern was the attidtude. The person was from the other side of the world (No, I'm not blaming anyones' nationality) and he thought a 10 in 25 to 30 would be okay as the wind would drop off(?), plus he saw an instructor with a student at the same spot and said, "if it was okay for teaching he'd be okay", his kites' leading edge was soft as S**t and thought his kite rigged at full depowered was the answer to over rigging with a 10 in that wind strength.
Sorry, long keyboard bash to say, thank you to the foreigner for listening and pulling his QR and swimming in before a S***ful event occurred.
To every other Kiteboarder who was there at the time and the instructor, "PLEASE" look out for people in trouble, don't expect the problem will simply go away. Not trying to start a fight or anything, just want to make sure we look out for each other and ensure we have somewhere to go and kite.
/RANT Over, sorry back to it.
