StKilda Seawalls and Safety

Two incidents at StKilda today highlighted the need for greater care at StKilda.

Incident one involved a kiter tentatively launching his kite so near to the seawall that when he immediately hot landed the kite it hit two parked cars in Pier Road.

From the outset there appeared to be a series of signals that all was not well. When readying for launch [by an experienced kiter] he was directly upwind of his kite. The experienced kiter correctly waved him around to the edge of the window so as not to create a hot launch. The kiter appeared reluctant to take the directive however until the launcher was satisfied with the kiters position he rightly did not let go.

The kite moved up and quickly into the power zone – it was the obvious the kiter did not know what he was doing and the kite luckily dived and crashed – but into two parked cars beyond the seawall. The kiter was only pulled forward a few meters.

What was obvious was that whilst the beach was over 100 meters wide at the area near to launch [low tide] the launch was only 15meters from the Seawall. This is too close to pedestrians and parked cars.

Incident two involved an experienced kiter walking his kite at 12.00 oclock next to the seawall near to the main StKilda Kite Beach entrance. The kiter appeared to be returning a borrowed board and had a brief discussion with a uniformed instructor. Sadly the instructor did not tell the kiter to immediately move back from the seawall.

This is really scary as any gear failure at this time or a freak gust may result in the kite landing in traffic on Beaconsfield Parade. What carnage could follow I will leave to the imagination but as a two lane busy thoroughfare it would likely not be pretty either for the kiter, who gets dragged by his lines as the kite wraps around the front of a car/truck travelling at 60k, for the pedestrians that have lines cutting across them powered by the now well kite-wrapped vehicle and anchored by the now seawall-impaled kiter, and the parked vehicles and street side pedestrians now being crushed by the out of control emergency braking kite-blinded vehicle. It’s too scary to think about.

It’s only after the police/coroner immediately close the beach to kiters and then the council imposes their complete ban on kiting at StKilda, that we will all say kites should have never been flown near the seawall. But it will all be too late.

As a suggestion for anyone kiting at StKilda, please stay at least 25 meters away from the seawall along what is now a designated kite beach.

We had some dodgy southerly winds here in Sydney last Saturday. This has never happened to me before so it was a good wake up.

I walked up the beach with a demo kite above my head. Had a brief chat to a fellow kiter before putting the kite down when the wind, which was previously about 12 knots dropped to 0 knots for about 5 seconds. Just long enough for the kiter to fall out of the sky, and then come in again at 12 knots, sending the kite on slack lines across the beach. Luckily I was far enough away from any obstacles and all ended safely. Lesson learnt - you can not be too careful.

nnnnnnnnnnooooooooooooo Lachy......get back in you box!!

Just a quick one in reply to your obviously misinformed information here.

Firstly as a kiter in St Kilda and someone whom has had a number of friends go through a prominent school on St Kilda West Beach it is clear that this school works very hard in training their students very well as to the dangers and safety elements of the sport.

I read on their website the other day that they are the only school in victoria to be IKO affiliated. I looked into it and found that there are a number of elements that must be complied to, so as opposed to your misinformed ranting, why don't you take the time to meet the schools and see how they do things.

When was the last time you had a lesson? Do you know anything about the training guidelines or lesson structure of the schools in St Kilda? All of my friends that have come through the school there are very happy with their kiting and know their safety well.

A couple of them have actually helped out in stopping people that have gone and bought kites at one of the shops in town during their big yearly sale and without lessons have come to St Kilda and tried to fly it.

Secondly, when you say "Even the good riders stuff it up big time, what chance has a novice got when the sh@t hits the fan" what do you mean?

Do you mean novices jump too close to shore and hurt themselves like some of the experienced kiters in St Kilda?

They wear their leashes as suicide and when they get into trouble they have no way of depowering the kite like some of the experienced riders?

They start kiting up on pier road where there is lucky to be 15-20m of sand out from the road?

They stop worrying about their safety procedures?

They havn't learnt the weather as well as a more experienced kiter?

Not interested in starting a but he said, but they said, whatever match but it really annoys me when generally better kiters that think they'll jump on here with a few throwaway stupid comments like this (I think we need someone to get hit by a car!, maybe cause a pile up. Then when you tell newbies the story at least it has more impact!) and then go on their little rants and start talking about things they have no idea about.

My instructor did that too! Most impressive! Safety was something that was barely explained at all, but then again, who wants to be told how much it can hurt you???I could name a few other things too, but i'll leave the bitching to others. I wont name them, but i will say its a IKO certified school at this beach!

I will give them 1 thing tho, this was at least 10 months ago, so things might have improved.

I had a simliar experience expect my gust was 43kts and ended up on the road 100m from the beach - not fun. I never park the kite at 12oclock anymore or get close to dunes ~~~

Agreed there's a huge difference between stuffing up a trick and hurting yourself and being hurt because you don't know any better.

This is the great thing about St Kilda West Beach, there's a community of kiters that help each other out. If someone is doing something that doesn't look quite right then there is an instructor and 5 other kiters there in seconds to help.

I'm not talking about pier road here where there is 15 metres of sand before the wall and road, this is only a small minority of kiters that use this and unless you know what you're doing it is a very dangerous area with rockwalls, breakwalls, and a road within range everytime somebody launches. Not to mention this a few of the guys are known to walk across the road into the park with their kites in the air. Not a great example to those learning the sport!

Not the case on the main area of St Kilda West beach, this is an area that the schools there and kiting community work very hard to keep things safe.

With a couple of hundred metres of sand there it is a much safer option for learning and with a safety network of kiters and others looking out for them it is a fantastic area to learn once they've had their lessons.

Agreed the offshore winds are pretty gusty, however there's nobody out there in these winds. The seabreeze that comes through most of the season is very clean and consistent.