Emergency/Powered Stop
How do you an emergency stop?
Below are tips for this discipline, gathered from various buggiers
This is spit second reactions we are talking about here, if you have got some pace on, your kite will be lowish anyway, straight into a power slide, and as you are slowing, the kite will shoot round, as this is happening, you raise the kite to zenith…everything then stays in control.
I have done this many many time on Mable in the summer when there are all sorts of kids and dogs, that just dont see or hear you coming, I always give a loud shout if it is a kiddie, but nine time out of ten, he will turn round and freeze right on your line, hence an emergency stop, and give the poor kids mothers heart time to calm down,
In the case of a buggy in front followed by another one close by, even if I dont know if anyone is behind me before my turn I always, well nearly always give the rotating arm signal, sometime I turn and no one is there, other time someone was there saw my hand signal knowing I was about to turn and already turned themselves.
I am not saying this is fool proof by any means, its just another thing that may help a collision, generally, if a buggy is that close to you behind you, you will have noticed a kite near yours anyway.
Keep the kite low, swing your arse out so buggy is not facing kite and slide, knock off a couple of mph, turn swing arse other way and down turn at the same time, you will stop pretty quick.
Or
Keep kite low, swing your ass out buggy not facing kite and turn up wind as hard as you buggy will be almost in line with your lines,
option 1 you have the chance to steer out of trouble on the down turn bit, as long as no one is too close down wind you you. I tend to turn upwind letting the wheels break away then bring the kite round low right to the edge of the window.
When I really have to stop quick (recently when a dog came out from nowhere) I pull the kite down hard on the brakes and at the same time steering hard downwind putting the buggy into an unpowered controlled slide/spin lifting the handles enough so that the lines clear the wheels or headstock.
I’ve done this a few times at near 40mph in a big buggy on hard sand, not sure I’d recommend doing this in a flexi in soft sand.
I often get in situations in my flexi where I send the kite high when slowing so that it actually makes me lighter on the ground. This stops it tipping me out at speed. Most of the descriptions of how to stop have primarily been concerned with race type bugs.
There needs to be a distinction here. IMHO. The best solution is to never fly outside your comfort zone…..”yeh right” …I can hear you now.
OK then perhaps know your limits so that you are not endangering yourself or others. Progression is what the sport is all about for me but safety should be paramount.
A slide is the most simple , you simply turn against the pull of the kite , obviously while it is powered up. If your front end goes sliding first you need to adjust your seat forward or move your front wheel backwards but that can cramp up your legs. Ideal case is when you turn the front wheel away from the kite the whole 3 wheels slide together, you then move your head back or front a bit to adjust the slide. if you want the rear to kick out move your weight forward a touch. NOTE ! powersliding on uneven ground or in soft sand is a lot more tricky and a flat sand beach is the easiest place to begin. so far i have discovered no speed limit to sliding
It is very rare you will do a powered stop or emergency stop, when you are thinking about coming in you are slowing down way in advance, to have to stop at speed, doesn’t happen often thankfully, only normally when trying to avoid an accident
I think the last time I done a stop like that was when I was doing the Mable to Skeg run the first time, on the return run, we were going much quicker, touching around 40mph, we were coming up to Anderby Creek, when the guy in front of me just vanished, we were taking a different route back as the tide had gone out further, and Si came up to and down a huge creek about 3-4 feet deep, we didn’t notice this going the other way, any way unlucky for him, down he went rolled the buggy and got dragged along the creek floor, I was about 25m behind him quite well powered up, and had to use all my knowledge to stop the buggy in time before I joined him down the creek, luckily I did with about 8m to spare…