Kiteboarding Forums

Just curious to find out why kiters lose their boards & kites or forget gear on the beach.  Saw 2 posts since yesterday about losing equipment along blaauwberg. Personally I have never lost anything, and hopefully it stays that way. Anyone keen to share experiences of how they lost equipment. Have you had equipment returned which you lost.  

Interesting question, keen to see the responses out there.

I've never lost anything - and I've had plenty of kites release on me way out in the ocean. In my experience runaway kites always make it back to the beach (I've seen kiters hang on for their lives only to be dragged out to sea for fear of losing their kites).

I suppose it depends on your local conditions - in offshore winds it's possible to lose a runaway kite.

As far as lost boards are concerned : If you have strong upwind currents it's pretty easy to lose a board. I "lost" a board or two like this in Langebaan where I had to drive as far as 1-2 km's upwind to retrieve my board.

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iKiteboarding.com

In winter I went down to the beach for a quick season after work, and by time i was finished it was getting dark and i packed up real quick. That night as I was going to bed realized that I left my bar behind, so rushed down there with a torch at about 12 to get it before the tide took it away by the tide. Since then I been tired to be careful but about a month later almost did it again when it started raining.

Think you just do it when you start rushing or you are tired and cold and you get lazy, friend told me to just count when i get to the car 1234, 1: kite 2:board 3:bar 4:harness. dont have 4 things you dont have enough

1-2-3-4 ......I Love it, I've lost a bar packing up with a friend, you assume that the other guy has got what you don't...expensive mistake.

End of a long day at Shark Bay, wind changed during day so my wife and I had changed kites halfway. Tired, becoming dark, each one thought the other one had the 7...

Went back an hour later, but it was already gone. Fortunately it was picked up by a Good Samaritan who handed it in at the shop in Table View.