Due to a number of complaints from the public and a few people launching and landing right on top of beach users, the rangers are now discussing a number of ways to make the beach safer.



The sport is not going to be banned (as the windsurfers all groan!), but it is likely that there will be a seperate area for it, roughly half way up the car park, and all beach based kite flying is now likely to be moved past the reeded area towards Red Rocks.

stu what about kite lessons have they got the goahead?

Yes they have. Hows the kiting going?



Should be starting sometime May...

Nasty accident at Aberavon over the weekend, guy blown off the water, over a shop & into a wall. After Colin's incident hope the local officials don't get twitchy.



BBC Site Coverage on:



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/3643147.stm

As a windsurfer and potential kitesurfer (my daughter wants to take up kitesurfing but because she is only 16 the kite schools I have been in touch with insist that I accompany her while she is being taught) I am concerned about the injuries that kitesurfers suffer when they have an accident.

I was present at WK when Colin broke his leg, I also witnessed the accident to a regular Rhosneigr kitesurfer (Duncan) about 18mnths ago who also broke his leg (but after seeing the 4" fibreglass flagpole that he smashed into 3 pieces followed by the mess to the side of the Transit van and the state of him before the ambulance arived it looked a LOT worse) and heard indirectly that the young lad who got injured over the weekend had serious head injuries.

Now all of these kitesurfers are very skilled and experienced but when it went wrong they came off very badly.

In Collins case maybe if he had left a bit more room between turning before the promenard wall and car park and in Duncans case trying to land his kite on a very small width of beach because of the extreamly high tide in quite windy and gusty conditions with an inexperienced helper and the freak gust that caught the young lad out at the weekend these accidents might have passed as near misses.

So why didn't these kiters dump their kit when it started to go wrong ?

Several reasons spring to mind but here are the three I think are most likely:

1. belief that although the situation is rapidly geting out of control, with your skill and experience you will be able to pull it back before it gets too late.

2. not wanting to dump a new or expensive kite in case it gets trashed

3. failure of the safety release

Now if it is 1 or 2 then that is a personal decision that I am prepared to face but if it is a failure of safety features then that is not something I my daughter to find out obout the hard way.

I wouldn't like to see any restrictions on (responsible) kitesurfing anywhere and am hughly impressed by the tricks, hight of jumps and general air time the kiters manage I am a bit wary of having a go myself if ther is a potential safty problem with the kit.

One of the main reasons is that everything happens very quickly when it goes wrong, leaving no time to hit the safety release. Reason number 3 can also be a factor, some releases have been known to stick momentarily before working, this is enough time to be lofted or to hit an inanimate _object_. There is also rider at fault situation, going out in gusty or very high winds (the higher the wind, the bigger the gusts). My own progress in kitesurfing has been very slow, because I have been wary about the winds I have gone out in, because of these kinds of stories.