Long time no speak and all that!

I am with you on the impact vest, I have always used one as I do when Wakeboarding as you never know. Nonetheless as you explain I am comfortable with this activity so I don’t tend to use a helmet, although I always do when on the Kite. This I would put down to then fact I have a leash to my board and I have seen the damage a board can do! So I go with this:

Leash = Helmet for sure

No Leash = Helmets always a good idea but your of a level that you know what your doing

As for the Mafia! Keep safe

Regards

Carl

Whereas the mafia (who some say control Kiteworld) may cut your brake lines on land, on the beach they’ll file down one of your steering lines or compromise your harness in some way.

Paranoid? Yes. But as you know, this is big business we’re dealing with!

Yes I was sure that people might raise the point about helmets, as a couple have done on the FB link. Students / those on lessons should wear lids and vests of course (as dictated by the BKSA policy) but I think once you get comfortable with the sport, you start to make decisions based on your own experiences.

For example, a lot of people I know wear board leashes even though they’ve been kiting for 8 years or so; for them the board becomes a safety device when all is lost and they don’t want to be easily parted with it. Most kiters maintain that board leashes are verboten.

I’m wearing an impact vest before a helmet because in all the problems I’ve had kitesurfing, being hit on the head was never one of them (*apart from once!), but struggling for buoyancy often is. Now, this could be as much to do with where I kite (big, open beaches with cross / cross on winds and nothing to hit for miles, and that waveriding with a kite is much the same as waveriding without a kite. The most likely way you’ll get hit on the head is by your own board, when you’re resurfacing after a wipeout and as you know any sensible surfer sticks their hands up first to sheild their dome from any loose boards.

However I have a Gath on order this week, as there is a spot nearby that breaks over a rocky reef and attempting to get ‘deep’ there can result in going over the falls, and possibly a bang on the head – so I’ll be wearing the lid there from now on. When I’m not in a situation where head traumua is a distinct possiblity, I find lids like wetsuit hoods – claustrophobic and dulling the senses.

There is the counter-argument that you may be caught unawares and clonked on the head, but if you take that to it’s logical conclusion, we should be wearing lids to play football and in the kitchen (more head bangs from standing up and hitting an open overhead cupboard door than any other factor I reckon!); maybe now I’m missing the point but for most of the riding I do (high depower kite, no board leash, deep water, not doing tricks, wave riding), there is a low risk of severe head trauma.

That said I’d never make that argument against anyone who wants to wear a lid for whatever reason.

* I had a deep gash to the forehead after a tumble into some rocks / board (not really sure which) in the shorebreak at the beach at Porthleven. This happened because I should have ditched all my kit when the kite fell out of the sky, rather than lazily letting all my gear wash my in. If I’d have disconnected from the kite, and pushed the board away, I’d have been able to tread water safely and wait for the lull rather than chancing it in the set. I knew that at the time, as said I was just lazy/complacent to the risk which IMO is the reason for more injuries than lack of personal protection equipment.

Maybe time for a post on being your own risk rechnician?