I heard there's been a bit of heat between kiters and sailors on the speed strip.
So I have appointed myself Windsurfing ambassador and have offered the olive branch to the kiters (See kite forum).
If you have any issues or suggestions use this topic or send me a message through this site.
This will provide a central discussion point and hopefully prevent things getting ugly ![]()
Why ? some of my friends are kiters and I'm a bleeding heart hippy trying to spread peace and love ![]()
I think from reading on the kite forum section of this topic you might need all of your Sir Les ambassadorial skills. If the fundamental rules for the avoidance of collisions at sea are "stupid" and the majority of those out there are totally and blissfully ignorant of the existence of such rules then collisions WILL occur and people will be pissed off. If I cant rely on someone not to alter course after I have started to take evasive action and/or cannot rely on whether they will veer to port or STARBOARD then its going to hurt. There are other rules and conventions that we rely on, local conventions are fine but who knows them and how are they applied. I see already that the "convention" Give way to someone on a speedrun and Give way to someone doing a trick is in conflict. Look down the speedrun-all clear-halfway down a kiter sets out to do a trick and both want to be on the same bit of water at the same time. After good manners are exhausted the fundamental rules will be applied.
The purpose is to let the kiters know we are not deliberately coming close to them,
and we respect their right to be there, as they should respect ours
The reality is the time spent by a sailor in their area is very short, approx 30 seconds every 6 minutes.
With three sailors out that works out as 90 seconds out of 6 minutes, even the ADD kid these days should be able to concentrate for that long
I might take down my peace pipe
after a puff of that I'm sure they'll be very understanding ![]()
So it would be irresponsible of me to keep training sharks with offal to look for kites with meat attached?