Spacemonkey! said...
MRRT those Stats you just quoted are bogus. The difference between the first 3 years is minimal considering the ammount of data collected- 65.
Huh? I'm not sure what you're getting at? Here's Ricki's explanatory notes surrounding these particular stats:
"A more accurate statistical picture might be obtained with a comparison of accidents to hours kiteboarded. At present there is no available accurate estimate for the total number of hours kiteboarded in the USA.
NOTE for every kiteboarding fatality there are far more (likely many 100s to 1000s) non-lethal injuries attributable to the same causes. Many of us know of people who have been hurt practicing our sport, some quite seriously. In working to avoid severe injury through proper kiting practice riders may well avoid any injury at all. This is a major point of this article.
Some of the trends in kiteboarding fatalities worldwide (total number of 52 through July 2006), are summarized below. These statistics have been calculated from reported but generally unconfirmed observations received worldwide. All parameters are not known in all cases. Credible new information received in the future as sometimes occurs may alter some of these statistics.
1. The most experienced riders appear to put themselves at the greatest risk.
Experience
4 or more years = 42%
3 years = 23 %
2 years = 15%
up to 1 year = 17%
2. Older riders in their late 30s and 40s appear to be at highest risk. NOTE: there is NO information available regarding serious but survivable injuries which could significantly differ from this summary. That is, just because you are fairly young doesn't mean you have a free “Get Out of Jail"
Also the 4 years and more bracket includes people who have done it for 4 years, 5 years, 6 years..... etc. The first 3 years for arguements sake would be roughly equal but there would be a lot more kiters in the 4 years+ bracket than in people who have been just kiteboarding for 2 years for instance.
So really out of the 65 people that have unfortunately passed away kiting the only thing we can say is that it happens to everyone. Wrong place at the wrong time. Those stats you have quoted are deliberately skewed to mislead.
I think you're missing the point. What these stats show is that only around 1 in 6 kitesurfing deaths were amongst raw beginners to the sport which counters a common excuse that most of the deaths are due to any Tom, Dick or Harriet getting a kite and killing themselves because they didn't know what they were doing. In contrast a very significant 42% of deaths occurred amongst veterans of the sport (those with over 4 years experience).
Also, if we believe the numbers of kitesurfers have been increasing exponentially each year, then there quite likely will be fewer people in the 4+ year bracket as there were far fewer people in the sport during the first 3 years the sport existed than there were in the 6th year of the sport (2006 when the figures were compiled) (or do you think the popularity of kiting isn't going thru the roof after all?).
Surely, this is very valid information that all kiters should be aware of in order to hopefully counter the cock-sure attitude that "I'm too experienced - it'd never happen to me" that can all too easily lead to carelessness or over-confidence.
Look, I'm not cherry-picking this data. Read the source - it was compiled by the respected kiter Ricki Lossi, a very prolific poster on kiteforum.com who has had very strong support and encouragement from the rest of the members on that forum. Please don't give us seabreeze members a head-in-the-sand reputation in comparison.
-Mart
LOL
