Around 4pm I pulled in to the Wainui Resrve carpark just in time to see a kite floating about 200m out on the south side of the Suckers sandspits. It was half-tide out-going, I was going for a S.U.P at ngarunui beach.... An IRB sped off to help/check it out but there was no-one holding onto the fully-inflated kite. The kite was slowly being washed in by the current, gently caressed by 8-10kts of weak sea-breeze.

I got out for a paddle surf in the slightly onshore 2ft surf - there was quite a bit of tide flowing, setting up a couple of rips, kinda fun workout for SUPping with little lefts & rights dumping and reforming into the channels.... So I kinda guiltily played for 3 hrs hoping not to paddle into any floating corpses. Meanwhile there was alot of spectacular search & rescue action going on, there were two IRBS, 3 rescue Jetskis, the big Coastguard Jet/Cat & a commercial fishing boat - all frantically looking for the missing owner of the kite.

Got home in the evening & heard through the Raglan grape-vine that the Kiter had swum in - no worries !??

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Raglan is a heavy tidal spot for kiting, it doesn't pull any punches, if you kite in Raglan sooner or later you'll be on the recieving end of all that tidal energy. I've done a fair few self-rescues, given & recieved heaps of assists & been rescued by the clubbies a couple of times.

Here's a basic survival guideline:

# Dont kite the Raglan channel in under 15kts with outgoing tide.

# Stay with your kite if it goes down.

# Wear an impact vest / bouyancy device


Remember that riding in Raglan channel you are only one broken line / gear-malfunction away from a Big swim.

If your kite goes down & it's not coming back up - quickly make your way up a line to the kite & grab the wingtips and fly/swim your way across the wind & the current. The longer you delay the self-rescue the bigger your drama will become....

Dont rely on other kiters to help you out if it's light wind.

The best rule-of-thumb wind-strength guide I use for kiting is this:

If it's not windy enough to kite-rescue yourself out of the shit - then don't put yourself in the shit by kiting in crappy light wind conditions.

Desperation-light-wind-kiting sucks - save your kiting for windy days.

Go surfing, fly a glider , skateboard, cycle - go for a swim ( minus the kite. ) :wink:

a timely reminder, yeah its summer its hot and if ur going in the water anyway why not take ya kite, but dont get sukd in or out as the case, i know rags is abit diffrent but the pint is keep it safe, play in the shallow stuff ,if in doubt dont go out, i lov summer , we so lucky.

its about time i tried Raglan...well now that i live in Ngaruawahia! can you reccommend a weather website ? met service? and i'm sure its around somewhere but whats the best direction? I had a look the other day and i'm guessing the launch is near the small public toilet across the road and from the flying saucer house.

i always ask the locals before i kite somewhere new, on the day....but how will i be able to tell a raglan local kitesurfer....? do you fullas have dreads and say "hey man" allot....its been a while since i was there last

ps - i dont have dreads but i say hey man allot lol