Peterc150 said...

stehsegler, did you read my blog post? I was stationary in the water with my kite overhead at neutral.

The windsurfer in question was bearing directly at me at speed and passed me upwind very close. I felt I was in danger and could see absolutely no need for this.

His buddy did the right thing and went past with a good safety margin. I was well out of the 5 knot no boating zone.

When I was windsurfing, a friend of mine sailed past me at speed about 2 feet away from me when I was in the water. I know he has the skill for me not to be at risk but I still wasn't happy about it and when I mentioned it, he also had thought afterward it wasn't a good thing to do.

I think with other water users even more so its important to avoid making them uncomfortable.

As I originally replied to Peterc150s posting these incidents should not be taken as reflecting on all kite boarders or sailboarders or SUPers or surfers or even the fishos, it is a reflection on the individual not their chosen water sport. As many have posted in this thread, many incidents are accidents and are acknowledged by those at fault.

If you take the time to look over the fence in the kite forums you will see that every second thread at the moment is directed at regulating newbies or mandatory lessons or not selling gear unless proof of lessons is provided, etc, etc. There is a huge ground swell of self regulating happening at the moment to make sure we all kite in a manner that is safe for all water users and the general public. We are sh#% scared that we will start losing access to beaches and having been involved in the Parks Victoria meetings here, if kite boarding is banned from a beach so will windsurfing!

Thanks for helping make my point JonesySail, although I don't think that was you aim....

If you read the threads provided you will see the concern from the kite boarders and the push to self regulate.

Smithy said...

Thanks for helping make my point JonesySail, although I don't think that was you aim....

If you read the threads provided you will see the concern from the kite boarders and the push to self regulate.

Yes, but will that work? There's no sign of it so far as the above examples attest. This sort of thing has been going on for ages and does not look like stopping anytime soon. I know some great kiters at my local, I really do, but the proportion of the kiting fraternity that acts like idiots or plainly have no idea what they are doing seems alarmingly high.

I have to say, thumbs up to the dude I saw help out his teabagging buddy (by providing some visual reference to incoming windsurfers) as he drifted right into the windsurfing launch area at the pond today with some sort of problem.

Thumbs down to the dude with the orange para kite cruising along the foreshore with the kite diving up and down over the foot path tho. I think he got moved along shortly after I noticed him, as he disappeared up to the kite launch area.

Coming from a surfing background I started windsurfing about 30 years ago, just after teak booms were replaced with aluminum and there were only 2 different boards on the market. Not long after every corner store was selling some kind of windsurfing gear. As soon as we took to the surf we were the scourge of the sea the surfers hated us as did the clubbies and the general beach going public, a lot wanted the windsurfing rabble banned.... Roll on 20 years and along comes the new scourge, kitesurfing!! It's a shame Seabreeze wasnt around in the early days of windsurfing to see what the surfers had to say???

When the boating zoning review was undertaken by Parks Victoria a couple of years back a number of workshops were held around Port Phillip and Western Port bays to be attended by all stakeholders. I attended 2, one at Safety Beach the other at Carrum, as a representative of KBV. As there was no representatives from the windsurfing community I also took the initiative to represent the windsurfers as well (as I go both ways so to speak). It was quite clear that the zoning of 5 knot exclusion areas would apply to both sports as the 2 sports where not differentiated. It was also quite clear that the general public don't know the difference, all they see is board speed at swimmer level, they do not see the additional risks associated with kite lines etc. In Victoria at least, councils cannot act alone to ban a sport without Working with Parks Vic as the council does not have direct control of the waterways.

Back to my original point.... If anyone is acting like a dick, regardless of their chosen sport, and putting others at risk or the location at risk, step up and tell them but make sure you tell them what the problem is! Maybe follow Te Hau and form a club....

Happy new year to all.

The meetings held by Parks Vic were not held to ban any sport or create any exclusion zones they were held as part of an assessment of all water zoning around Victoria. In their openning address at each meeting they acknowledged that with sports such as kiting and windsurfing the 5 knot rule within 200m of shore was maybe not appropriate as that they were loooking at areas where this rule could be relaxed when no other beach uses were about.

I am not sure who they invited but there were attendees from the yatch clubs, KBV, surf life saving, speed boating clubs, jet ski association, coast guard and the general public. The meetings were very positive but unfortunately the number of areas that the 5 knot rule was altered was minimal.

Maybe they didn't feel a need to invite the sailboarders, maybe they thought KBV covered both, you would have to ask the organizers. I think there was about 5 meetings in total. For the record I did point out the differences between the sports and their varying needs.