Explore europe in a campervan

We’ve had a very windy week indeed. Parked in the pig field in Tarifa there was no way you could avoid the wind, if you left a window or door open then dried grass and dust would get blown into the van. Due to the strong wind kite-surfing was pretty much a no-no, my 11 metre kite was just too big for the conditions. I gave it just one attempt though, when the wind seemed to have eased off…

It seemed like I hadn’t kite-surfed for days. Every day seemed to bring 25 knot winds with 35-40 knot gusts, everyone was flying 7 metre kites and unfortunately I only have an 11 metre. Then the other day the wind wasn’t so strong. Out on the water there were quite a few 12 metre kites. So off we went to the van to get sun-creamed up and get my kite-boarding gear.

By the time we got on the beach there was only one 12 metere kite out on the water and quite a few more 9 metre ones. I thought, what the hell, the wind felt hardly any stronger and there was still a 12 out. So I got the kite set up and went out on the water.

At first it the wind was ok, I was very powered but seemed to be under control. The wind was strong though, so I stopped for a little while out at sea to make sure my kite was fully de-powered using the trim straps. From that moment onwards the wind just seemed to get stronger and stronger. Even with the bar pushed fully out (full de-power) the power was still too much to handle. I tried to keep the kite up high and edge upwind to keep my speed low and hold my position.

I just couldn’t. Before I knew it I was going too fast and having real trouble stopping without flying into the air and it wasn’t long before I lost it. My board was no longer on my feet, it was about 10 ft behind me. Normally I could just body drag back to the board in no time. Not today, the wind was so strong, the waves were high and I just couldn’t make any progress up wind.

After a few more tacks I just couldn’t see the board at all. Pulling in the bar (fully powered) I would get launched about 10 ft into the air, right out of the water, but even from that height I still couldn’t see the board. I noticed I was pretty far down-wind and down the beach so I had to head back in without my board.

By the time I got within about 40ft of the beach I was right down at the other end in the bathers section. A man right at the shore said I shouldn’t be there, I told him that I didn’t want to be here and I had no choice. Lucy had walked all the way down the beach so was here to help me land the kite. Except there were loads of people on the beach, I wasn’t even sure I could land the kite, I wasn’t even sure I could keep my feet on the ground!

Then while I was trying to shout over to Lucy to try work out where to land the kite a big gust came. I didn’t want to get dragged onto the beach so I had to direct the kite to the left to stay on the water. It pulled me with such force through the water that I lost my shorts! There wasn’t much sea left by now and I was about to end up on the beach so I had no choice but to pull the safety.

At this point the kite should still be attached to my harness by the leash, but the leash didn’t hold and the kite went flying over the beach and was plastered across a fence on the dunes by the wind. It was very lucky that no one was seriously hurt. A couple of people were knocked off their feet by the bar but they didn’t need any medical treatment. The Red Cross people were on watch on the beach and wanted to call the police but, fortunately, the people involved didn’t.

So at this point I had nearly hurt people, I’d lost my board out at sea, my kite was wrapped around a fence and I had no shorts!

I was so lucky. Thankfully there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with the kite. Once we packed the kite away and I got out of my wetsuit we then walked all the way around the beach to see if anyone had seen my board. After a long walk we managed to spot the kite about 80 meters from the shore, so I just swam out and retrieved it. I never found my shorts but they are much easier to replace.

I did learn something from all this. In future if I’m over powered and have any doubts about landing the kite on the beach then its best to ditch it in the water, make my way up the 5th line and get back to the shore with my kite in my hand.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 24th, 2008 at 3:02 pm and is filed under Diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.