A kitesurfer has been taken to hospital with suspected spinal injuries after she hit a sandbar on the Swan River.The RAC rescue helicopter picked up the injured woman from the Point Walter sand spit this morning.
another one today.... stay safe, easterlies are gusty.
Hope her injuries are recoverable.
Kitesurfing does sound a lot more dangerous than windsurfing.
Onshore winds are a no no by the sounds of it.
Take extra care while out there.
The statistics say that it is more dangerous driving to the kitespot than kiting.
Or even not driving to the kitespot.
Seriously for all the hours of kiting done there is pretty limited serious accident ratio. And it is an extreme kind of sport.
More people die fishing, drinking, lining up to go drinking, tripping over, or simply not leaving their couch often enough and heart stopping.
Sensationalism is a modern epidemic.
...sorry i didnt mean to be callous, all the best to the injured (the post was not about them)
Select to expand quotepetermac33 said..
Hope her injuries are recoverable.
Kitesurfing does sound a lot more dangerous than windsurfing.
Onshore winds are a no no by the sounds of it.
Take extra care while out there.
With no figures to hand but based on the incidents that have occurred over the last 15 years, the majority would seem to be either Easterlies, or straight onshore (Westerlies). Regardless of the cause or your level of experience, both these scenarios mean you are kiting (generally in gusty conditions) with a short distance to the nearest danger (either on a narrow beach for an Easterly, or a direct downwind to nearest danger for a Westerly), and the risk profile is increased. The general principle of two line lengths to the nearest danger as a minimum is difficult to maintain if you are on the beach in either an E or W wind. If something goes wrong, your reaction time before encountering something that is likely to cause you great pain is severely limited in these scenarios.
Ultimately, kitesurfing has the potential to be a lot more dangerous than windsurfing. Like every sport, we assume a level of risk every time we go out, and thats a personal choice. Its fairly important to understand what that risk is though, and how best to reduce it, which comes with time and practice. Whenever these incidents happen, there is always a flood of people (including the media) saying 'he/she was an experienced kitesurfer'. If you assume the rough principle of 10,000 hours to achieve mastery in a particular field, a fraction of us are anywhere near 'experienced' at kitesurfing. Even if you are lucky enough to kite 4 hours a day every other day of the year, you are logging <750 hours a year on the water, and will need 14 years to achieve something akin to mastery. If you have had 4 summer seasons kiting, you will be lucky to log 500 hours. This isn't anything close to 'experienced'. As a young sport, our sense of relativity blinds us to the fact that collectively, there is very little experience in what we do.
This is in no way a slight on those of us unfortunate enough to be injured or killed in the sport. Sometimes its bad judgement, sometimes its bad luck.
