SELF LANDING THE KITE
In case you find yourself one day, alone on a beach with no one around to help you land your kite, you should definitely know how to perform a basic self landing. throughout this blog you can see how to safely self land your kite.
What if you are alone on the beach, with your kite in the air and no one around to land it for you ? My name is Petar Pavlovic, I love sharing my Kitesurf Experience with you and in this blog post I will familiarise you with basic self landing procedure.
As a Kitesurfer you should know how to perform self landing. Not to show off but in case there is no one around to land your kite. There is no one at all or just no one familiar with kitesurfing.
Also if for some reason you quick released your kite on the beach you should know how to safely reach it. Now we will see quickly a basic method of self landing and after this we will analyze all the steps.
KITE SELF LANDING KEY STEPS
- Make sure you have enough space down wind of you.
- Land the kite on one side of the wind window so that the safety line is lower.
- Let go the bar and disconnect the chicken loop from your harness.
- Walk with your hands over the safety line to reach your kite.
- Secure the kite in beach position.
- Take the chicken loop and walk down wind from your kite to put the safety line back in place.
HOW TO SELF LAND THE KITE STEP BY STEP PROCEDURE
It is important that you have enough space to perform self landing.
If your lines are 22 meters long, plus when your kite stays just on the safety line. The SPAN of your kite is from 3 to 5 meters – depending on the size of the kite you are using. Plus your safety leash in extension is from 50 cm to 2 meters depending on the size of the leash you are using.
So you would need at least 30 meters down wind of you free from any obstacle.
More safety zone you have better and safer it is.
If there is no object that could damage your gear and no one at all I would choose to land the kite on the beach.
But if there are sharp things or people chilling on the beach then land your kite on the water.
The best is to choose the side where the safety line is lower. When you eject the chicken loop quick release the kite will just flag out on the edge of the wind window. If the safety line is higher, after you ejected your chicken loop quick release you have to know that your kite might fall quite aggressively in the power zone.
SAFETY LINE TIPS AFTER YOU LANDED YOUR KITE
After your kite lost all the tension and everything looks stable you can start walking with your hands over the safety line to reach your kite.
I recommend always doing it with your palms facing down. If you are pulling the line with your fingers and the kite starts pulling, it might easily burn your skin.
Never roll the lines around any part of your body. Once you reach the bar, make sure to not touch it. Just jump over it with your hand, and grab again the safety line. And keep on going till your kite.
While walking with the safety line make sure to leave all the lines down wind of you. If for any reason your kite starts pulling, once you let the safety line go, you are completely out of danger.
Once you put your kite in beach position to not make a mess of your lines, do not disconnect the lines from your kite immediately. Make sure that the lines are not twisted around the kite.
Grab your chicken loop and walk down wind from your kite. Sometimes you can have lines twisted around your bar. Just gently remove them and keep on walking down wind.
Once the safety line is back in place, you can disconnect the lines from your kite and pack your gear.
BONUS – SAFETY TIPS
Never go for self landing without disconnecting the chicken loop from your harness. If for some reason the kite starts pulling and you have to let the line go, this can easily become a problem.
Therefore never disconnect the safety leash from the safety line, if you let the line go, you could easily lose your kite.
KITE SELF LANDING ADDITIONAL TUTORIALS
There are other cool methods of performing self landing as connecting the chicken loop on a fix point. Or just quick release the chicken loop and quickly pull the safety line which is not working the best on strong and gusty wind. But if you are wondering how to safely do it. You can check those tutorials on my Patreon.
