Power Kite Forum

Handles, harness, strop?

skymeat - 26-11-2006 at 04:18 PM

Can anyone describe how I'm supposed to tie my handles togather, and what kind of length adjustments should be made? I'd be using an old alpine seat harness that I'd been planning to retire from climbing.

code - 26-11-2006 at 07:25 PM

I'm guessing you've only flown a few times judging from your other thread. I wouldn't recommend hooking into a climbing harness unless you have something break-away (which usually isn't the case for climbing). I say this because you could get yourself in a lot of trouble, even with the 3.6m, by being attached to the kite without some form of release. Tried it with my old climbing harness earlier on, disregarding the opinions of people on this and other forums and had my butt handed to me several times by a 4m Ozone Little Devil. Luckily I didn't break or hurt myself too bad, but ran out and bought a kite harness shortly thereafter.

As for a strop... Basically you're just using a piece of rope to connect the two handles together (for instance...here's a letter diagram..haha.. l__l the "l" is your handles and the "___" is the rope connected to either the top of the handles or bottom of the handles). Once they're together, you'll feed the rope / line that is between the to handles under the spreader bar hook to relieve some of the pull on your arms and transferring it to the rest of your body. It works like a pulley at this point for steering with the rope sliding back and forth as you turn underneath the hook.

This would work with a climbing harness and carabiner, however, as mentioned before there is no form of instant quick release (that I know of) if you should get in over your head. The spreader bar is a simple hook allowing you to unhook with relative ease.

That said..I'd look into a kite harness..chest / waist dependant upon your preference. Both are good and both have their negative sides as well as their positive sides. There are a lot of threads on here discussing those pros and cons. And of course you'll need a spreader bar with that as well.

Hope that helps some,
Joe

khooke - 26-11-2006 at 10:07 PM

Like code says, make sure you're more than comfortable flying your kite before you hook-in to a harness since if you're not too sure what you're doing then you're asking for trouble and will most likely end up getting hurt.

Each time I get caught in a gust and it ends up being an OBE I'm still hooked into my harness - it all happens so quick and before you know it you're beeing pulled on your back backwards across the ground struggling to get control of the beast thats dragging you across the ground... :wow:

The length of strop really is your personal preference though - if it's too short the handles are going to be too close to your body. If it's too long it won't be any good if it's longer than your arms can reach because the strop will never be tight and take the strain through the harness. Play around with a piece of rope and work out the length thats right for you. Somewhere around 1.5ft seems about right for me.

leebrianh - 27-11-2006 at 03:50 PM

Here is some pictures of strops that came with Ozone kite and what I made using climbing rope. Ozone one is 23 inches and mine is little shorter than that. Hope this helps

DSCN1881.jpg - 209kB

leebrianh - 27-11-2006 at 03:50 PM

another one

DSCN1883.jpg - 252kB

code - 27-11-2006 at 06:12 PM

I'm noticing a theme...Brian takes a lot of pictures, none of himself other then his hands. :smilegrin: It's like the guy from Home Improvement..haha.

leebrianh - 28-11-2006 at 07:48 AM

haha. I am hoping my "hand twin" finds me with those pictures. We (hand twins) can make a lot of money in Las Vegas, you know.......:spin:

code - 28-11-2006 at 04:26 PM

well the hand twin will have a bit of trouble if you're always wearing gloves (which when flying I'd have to say now is smart). ~Joe

Bladerunner - 28-11-2006 at 05:54 PM

I got caught up on my bar one time. The kite was heading for a loop as I was trying to get into my water board so I let go :o. I was hooked in to the static loop/strop and this old one didn't have a Quick Release. On the 1st lofting I grabbed the bar again. On the second and 3rd I attempted to steer the opposite direction to the looping + push out of the hook. ( instructor had said, hold it parallel to the horizon :( ) On the 4th I realized that the strop had a twist in it so the bar was upside down = 2 backwards + stuck on the hook. Sometime during the 5th lofting ( time was going very slow by this point ) I remembered my instructor yelling at me to HOLD YOUR BAR STRAIGHT ! On # 6 I managed to crash it. Fortunately it was shallow enough I could stand up because I was winded and beat up good .... BAD !

After that big lesson I put a Q.R. system on my strops before I used them. I got some quick release pins and D rings at the marine shop. I put a red ball on the pin . I've never had to use it for it's purpose but find it's handy to undo it when sorting lines .

krumly - 29-11-2006 at 07:38 AM

Snowbird -

Could you share a detailed description or pics of the D-ring and quick release pin set-up you mentioned for strops? It sort of sounds like you're talking about using a spring loaded, ball bearing clevis pin through a D-shackle in lieu of the standard wired clevis pin.

krumly

Bladerunner - 29-11-2006 at 05:39 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by krumly
Snowbird -

Could you share a detailed description or pics of the D-ring and quick release pin set-up you mentioned for strops? It sort of sounds like you're talking about using a spring loaded, ball bearing clevis pin through a D-shackle in lieu of the standard wired clevis pin.

krumly




Sorry, I seem to have misplaced my camera. ( Bottom of a kite bag I think ) I think you may have it right. I don't know the name of the release but it is basically an L shaped lever with hinge at one end and a hole at the other. The pin is in a spring loaded barrel and clicks into the L lever. Pull to release. I'm pretty sure most marine shops will have one. An O ring would work as well as a D ring as a connetion point. I tied it close to one handle and put the release on the strop. Other handle is normal. I asked for something like this at our climbing shop and they couldn't help me. I think the clevis you mention is what I had in mind at 1st and is for climbing ?
The only thing I don't like is having these 2 metal bits hanging by the one handle. They aren't that big but could hurt if they boink you.
I'll try to find my camera and take pics soon .
:bird: