Opinions: kiting before/after storm front moves through?

[Prof Marc]

I'm curious to know if anyone will be heading out to catch the wind *before* the next storm front moves through? Is kiting before or after such a storm front usually a better bet?

The new forecast for Thursday is looking great:

"Mostly sunny, with a high near 84. West wind 5 to 10 mph increasing to between 15 and 20 mph. Winds could gust as high as 25 mph."

I'll be heading up to Millie. UMN people: let's carpool? [Word of advice: your advisor won't notice if you miss a day. He really pays much less attention to what you're doing than you think.]

--Marc

[Lee_Uptown]

We have a practice talk session today, so he'll notice if I'm missing ... I hope non of your students see your post. Did you get your kite fixed?

Eu Han

[Denis]

Concerning storms, I've always heard that right before they hit it gets really windy. Personally, I like to leave a good safety margin before and after a storm. Gusty, punchy winds are not very fun. I'd go out in good conditions, but I'd pack up when the clouds roll in.

I have a couple of meetings on Thursday, the last one ending at 1pm. Maybe I can put you in contact with my advisor to convince him that he doesn't need to pay that much attention to me.

[scottman]

Just my 2 cents about possible bad weather rolling in. About a month ago now, at least that I can remember, there was a storm comming in, I was at Reddy with a group of people, I was on my 14 Helix, right out of the bag, and on my 154 door, the wind was light at first then picked up. I have been out in some pretty challenging winds in my almost 8 years of riding so it was nothing new for me to be out in a big kite and board when the wind picks up, for me it's kind of fun. Anyway, I looked over my shoulder as I tacked back out away from the shore at Reddy, I didn't see any of the signs of REALLY high winds so I thought I would go out a few hundred yards and come in, well about 50 ft after that decision, bam, I think it gusted close to 50 mph, instantly the kite rocketed to the edge of the window, bar all the way out leaning back as hard as I could on the board, too much power....made what could have been the biggest mistake in my life I started to bring the kite up to the 12 O'clock position, wrong answer. By the time I could bring the kite back down to late, ripped me out of my board and yes, tea bagged me for about 150 yards I think. Finally stopped collected myself, back hurts, arms hurt and back of my legs hurt, while still leaning against the kite, checked my leash before I pulled it to make sure everything was good to go and pulled it, kite dropped and laid flat on the water like it was supposed to, thank god an end to the madness!! Collected my kite and walked down wind to the docks to finally find my favorite board rolling in the waves.

So I guess the moral of this stupid story is, when it gets dark and the wind picks up either before or after a storm it's best and safer to just pack it in until it passes, don't be stupid like I was thinking I could take one more tac out, I could have been really hurt or even killed by that one, who knows what could have happened.

[MK]

Good story, glad you're ok.

Thought I would pipe in on the 12'o-clock position. Some of you may know but sharing it to minimize these incidents.

I get an opportunity to teach a fair amount of people kiting and am glad I took the PASA training. Like most people I think I can pretty much figure things out in my DIY world but specialized training always unveils something new. The training doesn't secure me from incidents but simply provides an added layer of safety. One of the morsals of wisdom I pulled from my certification was to avoid flyiing the kite at high noon for this very reason. I think this is an evolution in thought from when I learned to kite in 04 and it makes sense.

There is a lot of good schools of thought out there and I won't contend I'm the authority but just a suggestion, fly your kite off to the side like 11 or 1 ish instead. Each scenerio of gusts is different and now I'm wondering if there is a benfit from keeping the kite on the down wind side or if up wind side would be safer of the two opitons... 11 or 1? Down wind could simply yard sale you or fly the kite to the edge giving you opportunity to QR. Up wind may loft you then yard sale you or give you time to sense the gust and then an opportunity to QR...hmmm.

As for the storms, I have ridden on both sides of them and probably through some lighter ones just last Saturday at the gathering. I like the advice of head warning and better to be safe. Hope others chime in since I suspect this topic has been on most all of our minds.