When our tube kite falls from the sky we must carefully try to lift it up and make it fly again, this blog entry is about how to proceed to relaunch a tube kite from the water.
If our kite falls it is due generally to bad handling or perhaps to a wind drop. Once our kite is flying, it is meant to stay flying with a little bit of control by our side. Kites are flying objects due to their better or worse aerodynamic profiles.
Once our tube kite has fell on the water, the bar lines tend to cross because the concave part of the kite profile will catch the wind, staying oriented to the incoming flow of wind, with which, as said before, the lines will pass from one side to the wind window to the opposite side, therefore crossing. To be able to make the kite relaunch, the bar has to be turned to the correct position of the kite lines.
Starting to relaunch the kite
To start the manoeuvre of relaunching the kite we must choose one of the side lines and start pulling this line backwards. The tension we must apply must be continuous, and according to that, the kite will begin to move towards the side of the wind window and arriving to the sweet point in which the kite offers enough profile to the wind to be aerodynamically efficient, the kite will start to rise on its tip.
The next step in this manoeuvre arrives when the kite is getting lifted vertically on the side of the wind window, but still resting its lower tip on the water.
With a little more tension backwards on the choosed side line, the kite begins to rise until starts its flight. At this moment we push the bar upwards, and without any tension on both side lines, the kite will be at its correct angle with respect to the wind.
In the diagram we can see the gradual progression that the kite is taking as we gradually keep pulling from the side line. We shouldn’t overpull the side line in order to not force the kite to fall on the water on the other direction opposite to the one in which we were pulling originally.
If that would occur, the kite would stay momentarily with its leading edge off the water and in the middle of the power zone, in which case we also could try to relaunch it by pulling backwards holding, by instance from the whole depower strip and next, this pull stroke holding the central lines would launch the kite upwards.
This situation will make the kite to relaunch in full power zone of the wind window, which in turn, would force the kite to develope its full power, launching us forward and upwards violently, provoking a dangerous situation.
The kite tube relaunch
in photos
1.- The kite has fall, we wait until it is completely downwind, then we pull fully one side line, in that case we are pulling from the left steering line.
2.- As the kite starts to lift, we keep pulling the left side line backwards.
3.- The kite now is about to launch because it is offering to the wind its aerodynamic profile. The bar then should be all the way up and we should control it to don’t move it neither left or right, so the kite will fly straight upwards.
4.- The kite starts flying, now it is time to position ourselves on the kiteboard by keeping the kite in the zenith.
and … voila! now let’s keep focused, let’s be precise in your commands on the control bar and … good kite session!
