Meeting followup: Guidelines to kiteboard safely in MN

[Denis]

For those who were not able to make it to the meeting, the consensus was to put together a set of guidelines as a first step towards making the sport safer to preserve our accesses. It should fit on one page and can be posted on websites and printed out. The page will have two sections: (1) general guidelines for kiteboarding in MN, and (2) lake specific guidelines. The audience is all kiteboarders including riders new to the area as well as experienced riders that might need a refresher.

Anyone can pitch in on this thread. There will be a meeting probably next Sunday (June 12) to consolidate all the comments and everyone is invited to attend. The tentative venue is a conference room at the University of Minnesota. More details to follow.

General guidelines:
Those are common sense rules that we all learned in our first lessons. Some examples:

• Don’t launch right upwind of obstacles (power lines, rocks, cars, highways)
• Launch with the kite towards the lake
• Launch and land away from beachgoers

Lake specific guidelines, for common spots:
Those are safety tips for common launching spots in the state. Right now, we can't police everyone but we can get the word out on safe riding spots and techniques. Some examples:

• Waconia:
  On the South beach with the obstacles, be extra careful, making sure to launch with the kite towards the lake.
• Calhoun:
  That one’s easy. Due to high traffic, ride other lakes like Waconia and White Bear
• White bear:
  On the North side due to high traffic at Ramsey beach, launch out of Rutherford whenever possible.
  At Bellaire due to trees next to shore, be sure to launch with the kite towards the lake

So go ahead and post any guideline items here and ride safe.

[MK]

Thanks for posting Denis. I have made this a sticky, meaning it will stay at the top of the threads.

[JRN]

REDDY CREEK: STAY AS FAR AWAY AS POSSIBLE FROM THE SWIMMERS. If this means hiking your gear to the east of the pavement, and on down the beach, then do so. Don't ride among or through swimmers regardless.

[mdh01]

Reddy Creek & Malmo:
Clear the launch area as soon as you can. Once you have your kite launched, move out of the area so others can launch and land safely.

Mark

[Lee_Uptown]

The most basic rules of kiting tht have been carried over from sailing is frequently ignored. It is simple to follow and prevents collisions. It is a universal rule/kiting language. Think about it like traffic rules, we drive on the right side and stop on red, pass on the left etc.

Here are some well described kite traffic rules I found on wikipedia.

Starboard Rule When kiters approach from opposite directions the kiter who has the wind on the starboard (right side, right leg/arm leads in direction of travel) has right of way. The kiter who has the wind on the port side (left side, left leg/arm are leads in direction of travel) shall keep out of the way of the other. In simple terms, this means "keep right" with the kiter coming in the opposite direction passing on the left. I think this is the most important one to remember.

Kite High Rule - A kiter who is upwind (closest to the wind) must keep their kite high to avoid their lines crossing those of downwind kiters. Similarly, the downwind kiter must keep their kite low to avoid their lines crossing upwind kites. This applies regardless of whether kiters are on the same, or opposing courses.

Clearance Rule - A kiter must have a clear safety zone of at least 50m downwind because they move downwind during a jump. A rider must also have a clear safety zone of 30m upwind to jump as his lines could touch the kite or the lines of another rider kiteboarding close by (see Kite High rule).
Kiters are also considered as sailing vessels – so some standard sailing rules apply.

[Kevinousdigian]

I applaud you guys meeting and discussing these issues. I think we need to directly talk about Ramsey beach more. I agree on a busy summer weekend or holiday we should likely avoid Ramsey. Rutherford is a decent option. I think we all need to be wiser about launching and landing and kiting at Ramsey regardless of the season. This is a great spot - I've already been there 9 times this year thanks to the abundant SEish winds - we don't want to lose it or injure a beach goer or a motor boater. Some rules of thumb that hardly (including me) anyone follows:

- Launch and land kite down next to water on the S-SW side of the beach (if your in parking lot looking out at lake this is to the right - farthest away from the beach where there are often people on nice warm days and it's also away from boat landing).
The benefits are it's usually upwind, lots of room, away from beach and boaters. I've seen numerous people get dragged through the beach people because they launched or landed right next to them. On lighter days you don't want to be down by that boat launch anyway - the wind usually is weak down there and if your kite goes down your in deep water with thick weeds (not good for lines or you).

- Don't launch and land kite up on grass next to beachhouse unless there are no non-kiters around and the wind is super steady from SE (coming right down from gap) (like yesterday, NOT like memorial day). Even then we should follow the earlier comments and be launch with kite out over water. In the last year I've seen big kites fall out of the sky right onto or next to beach goers from experienced kiters. I had a mishap landing a kite there solo where the wind circled and gusted and lifted it back up and across beach house. On Memorial Day the wind went gusty south - there were tons of non-kiters around and a lot of people were launching/landing up there - just asking for issues. Some of the kites had big challenges making it down to beach. Either way you have to walk to the beach. Just pump up on nice grass and then walk the kite down.

- while your kiting stay away from beach area, especially upwind of it and get away from the boat channel. They have a right to the lake and it's tough for them to get out when 25 kiters are buzzing back and forth the 'road' out. There is so much nice space to kite over towards rutherford and the wind often funnels down the sides of the lake. If there is more S in it the best wind and terrain is out beyond the reef. There are all the shallows to the east too - kite and do your tricks over there.

If we don't get wiser about launching and landing and kiting at Ramsey then sooner or later something will happen and we'll lose that sweet access during the entire season.

I think we need a beach cleanup at ramsey where we pull some of the weeds or whatever out to create more nice sandy beach down by water where I'm suggesting we launch and land more.

We are blessed to have these nice lakes around and we've had 7 of 8 days with wind. What a great stretch!

Kevin Ousdigian

[davepark]

I think we need a beach cleanup at ramsey where we pull some of the weeds or whatever out to create more nice sandy beach down by water where I'm suggesting we launch and land more.

Kevin Ousdigian

Be careful about pulling out any of the aquatic vegetation even if it looks dead. Check with the DNR first before doing anything like that. There are a lot of regulations around what people can and can't do to a shoreline and we certainly don't need them on our bad side.

[RandyL]

A few years ago Dave (ice_kmauve) lobbied to voluntarily have all kiters launch from Rutherford instead of Ramsey, from roughly Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day. Almost everyone followed the group, almost all of the time, and it turned out to be a great solution to a potential hazard (thanks Dave). Of course there will be some busy Ramsey Beach days on both sides of those dates but it's a good start. I know there are less beach goers than there was a few years ago, but there are many more kiters, and as the water rises the beach goers and boats will come back.
This community has worked very well with next to no rules and I'm not up for a bunch of rules, but I do think common sense and best practices are in order. On Memorial Day we had a half dozen or so kiters launch out of Rutherford and over the course of the whole day we had one group of three beach goers, who didn't swim and only stayed for an hour. Over the course of the whole day there were no boats even near the beach. On Monday I saw more than a few downed kites float down wind next to Ramsey Beach and right through the boat launch over and over again. The funny thing about Memorial Day is a lot of people launched from Ramsey and rode in front of Rutherford, which was good but why not just launch at Rutherford too. I know I'm guilty of jumping to close to shore, riding through the boat launch, self landing and launching when I don't have to, but I'm getting a little concerned after seeing how many people we have kiting out of our launches and how much space we require. We are now doing things at Ramsey that we would have never done a few years ago and the fact that we have more kiters and a larger number of less experienced kiters even makes it more dangerous.
One solution to deal with our potential launch issues is to follow Dave's original lead by committing to ride out of Rutherford on all southerly directions through the beach season. I will commit to it as long as I can get a few other people who share my concerns. For those of you who haven’t launched out of Rutherford Beach it’s not difficult at all, and if you think it’s difficult you probably shouldn’t be choosing Ramsey to launch, at least during the summer.
Be Safe

[bscheig]

I was riding at Rutherford on Tuesday. There were about 10 of us riding there and probably 2 people riding out of Ramsey. I saw it happen - the kitemare at Ramsey. Admittedly, I was a ways off, but I saw a white, red and black kite rolling through the shallows right in front of the beach. Fortunately, there were only a few people on the beach. There was someone running after the kite, but I couldn't tell if they were attached to it or not. They were able to get their kite under control and it didn't look like anyone was hurt, but the civilians got a good show. Please be careful around the non-kiters and consider Rutherford - it's a pretty good launch.

[Denis]

Thanks everyone for the input. We will consolidate the guideline list during our meeting, this Sunday, June 12th at 6:30pm at the University of Minnesota. Hopefully we will be able to keep the meeting to an hour. We will meet on Washington Ave in front of the Molecular and Cellular Biology building (see map). The building is locked on the weekends, so if you get there late, call me or send me a text (612 two zero three 1105). Everyone is welcome to attend.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source= ... 00339&z=18

Parking:
Meters are free on Sundays. The closest ones are on
Pillsbury Dr http://www1.umn.edu/pts/park/meters/EB/ ... eters.html
and East River Road http://www1.umn.edu/pts/park/meters/EB/ERR_meters.html
The Washington Ave ramp is close, but paying http://www1.umn.edu/pts/maps/Library/pdf/EBank.pdf

[Denis]

Teleconference information for those who cannot be there physically:

Phone: (507) 726-3051
Participant passcode: 103691#