hey guys and girls, I dont have a whole lot of buggy experience, and I was wondering if you riders that roll on the beach ever find yourself screaming out of control into the surf lol.

Its just a thought I had a second ago, and I'd like to hear some oops stories if you guys have them. I'm sure if I was on a buggy, it wouldnt take long before I found myself hydroplaning on the crashed waves, or crashing into the waves themselves haha

well i didn't go into the surf, but that's just because i was pointed in the other direction. on my first real day buggying, i quickly managed to figure out how to catapult myself over the fork and go airborne....:embarrased:
thank god for the sand....:D

I haven't gone screaming into the surf (yet), but I understand that ending up in the surf has happened to some people.

At JIBE 09 there was a guy actually dragging about in the surf in a light buggy i think he may have been on a race kite. he just keep the ride going and he floated rode it out . winds where all over the place, side off, i think, and the tides where rising.

i think he came with deano from FL .

anyway he took a surf lap and road it out

I've been yanked out of the buggy by a cute little 2m kite face first in knee deep surf before. The thing is in the buggy, if you are screaming along, you have momentum that you can use to steer with and point away from the surf. You are more likely to find yourself ending up in the surf because you are going slow and don't have enough wind or lose what little you had and you find yourself turning away from the kite trying to "harden up" your lines. Oh, if you do end up pointed into the surf, there is no hydroplaning. Your tires pretty much stay on the bottom till you get out of the buggy. A flexi and/or PL buggy will float with bigfoot tires. Yes, I'm sure. :D

I tried buggying once and got going so fast so quickly that I had to apply the Fred Flintstone foot brake system as I was too afraid to turn the buggy at speed (for die hard buggy guys I was probably crawling but it seemed fast and out of control to me). I struggled to get back upwind and couldn't figure out how to hold the power or carve harder against the wind as every time I tried to cut aggressively upwind I thought I'd get pulled out of the buggy or the kite wound up behind me where it had no power. When I got too close to the water for my liking, I stopped and flew the kite back and then pulled the buggy back to the staging area.

Like anything, the guys who are good make it look so easy and I was quite disappointed in my own poor performance. Had the beach been less crowded and the winds lighter I would have kept at it but I knew I wasn't up to the challenge of learning to buggy in high winds on a crowded beach so I went back to my board and all was well.

Yeah, I had to doge an unexpected move of a local land-boarder and luffed the kite. When it powered up, I found myself accelerating towards the surf pretty fast and not much time to do anything about it. Learned two things...
1) Salt water and a Blackberry -not good
2) Water makes an excellent brake

Mgatc got some good photos at JIBE 09 of me cooling off in some tidal pools. They are always deeper than you think...

I got caught by a sneaker wave at SOBB on my Coyotes. Dead stop. :Ange09:

Immediate face plant followed by a head to toe soaking.

Everbody thought it was very funny, accept me ! It was high tide so I was stuck with wet pants . :ticking:

Something I found interesting hitting tide pools with the buggy is that I seemed to be able to slice through with less resistance on thin barrow wheels than Pablo on Bigfoot Betty. Pablo would be slowed down and throw huge spray. It was much less dramatic on the flexi bug. :dunno:

Here is me , teaching my custom buggy to fly! if you zoom in you can see my feet dangling in the air . I got hit by a gust to infinity and bam!

What? Nobody can match a magic buggy ride?

lol.

Some good stories here. I have a couple. At the spring buggy bash last year, I got really wet, two out of the three days we were there. First day, I went around the point to the northern end of south beach (everyone else was on north beach) because I thought the wind had changed enough direction that I could cruise around over there. That was fine, but as the winds were side on shore, I ended up with a minor luff, and when trying to get some tension on the lines, headed straight into the surf. The tide went out, I went into the hard pack, and as the tide came in a wave went over the front fork of my buggy. I got SOAKED! Buggy came to a halt in 6 inches of water. I got up laughing and dragged the buggy to higher sand and packed it in.

Next day winds were side shore, so I was riding around in the softer sand, making takes from the dunes all the way to the waters edge. Tide had gone out nicely, so there was some hard pack along the edge of the water. Downside, there were some good tide pools there. I was using what is now Rian's Libre Supertruck. I was cruising pretty good. Went through a couple small pools that were very shallow, no big deal. Was making a good tack up wind, and found myself heading for another pool. Thought it was shallow, but it turned out it was about a foot and a half deep. The buggie literally FELL in. The water was so deep I was actually stuck for a minute while I signed the kite to pull myself out. Suffice to say, I was SOAKED again.

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Originally posted by flyboy15 hey guys and girls, I dont have a whole lot of buggy experience, and I was wondering if you riders that roll on the beach ever find yourself screaming out of control into the surf lol. Its just a thought I had a second ago, and I'd like to hear some oops stories if you guys have them. I'm sure if I was on a buggy, it wouldnt take long before I found myself hydroplaning on the crashed waves, or crashing into the waves themselves haha

Screaming out of control is a very rare event, but making peace with the water is a way of expanding the buggy experience. When the beach is narrow and the wind is not perfectly onshore you want to push your jibes as close to the water as possible. Sometimes you judge the wave wrong. :-)

Then there are the back waters and run outs. Sometimes the best tack takes you down a long finger of sand that ends in a run out. If you want to keep going you cross the water. If you're lucky it's shallow and you blaze through it. If you're not lucky the buggy can loose over half it's momentum in the length of your buggy. There is NO hydroplaning. There is only mud, water, and extreme decelleration.

A lot of people expect to stay dry when beach buggying, but I think you can have more fun if you plan to get wet and occasionally aim for the water. :-)

Philip

it's called becoming an anchor!

When I first started flying arcs I had an incident in which the chicken loop slipped out of the hook of my harness - the thing with arcs is that you can just lock them in a position and you don't have to move it at all and it will deliver consistent power - this tends to make me fly with one hand on the bar. When the kite unhooked it instantly went into a loop and almost ripped off my arm in the process - I didn't have a safety system at the time so I ended up just having to let go - bye bye kite. I quickly stopped the buggy and jumped out and chased after my new prize possession. After I had caught up to it and wrestled it to the ground I tiredly wandered back to my buggy that was FLOATING AWAY IN THE SURF! I dropped the kite and trudged out into waist deep water to retrieve my other prized possession. Never leave your bug in an area that the surf has been keeping wet.

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Sometimes the best tack takes you down a long finger of sand that ends in a run out. If you want to keep going you cross the water. If you're lucky it's shallow and you blaze through it. If you're not lucky the buggy can loose over half it's momentum in the length of your buggy. There is NO hydroplaning. There is only mud, water, and extreme decelleration.

I did that just last month except there was a 3' drop before the water it was a -1.2 tide, I almost made it across then got stuck and tried to down loop it to get out , well I got out just left the buggy and slid face first down the beach. It was my own fault I saw the sand bar on the way upwind, just forgot all about it on the way back trying to go as fast as I could.

Just after I got PL Rebble and had my first successful day boarding, some buddies came down the beach to watch ...
"Do a jump!" one of them said.
"Don't know how," says I, "but apparently all you need to do is fly it to one side, like this, then send it back to the - BLRK!" as I got yanked downwind :embarrased:
I wasn't even trying! Just ignorant of how much power was in my hands

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Originally posted by WIllardTheGrey I did that just last month except there was a 3' drop before the water it was a -1.2 tide, I almost made it across then got stuck and tried to down loop it to get out , well I got out just left the buggy and slid face first down the beach. It was my own fault I saw the sand bar on the way upwind, just forgot all about it on the way back trying to go as fast as I could.

Yeah, be careful what you wish for.

When the buggy bogs down I hate getting out of the seat. One loop is usually enough to pull me and my trusty steed through the oompah but if I underestimate the tenacity of the stuff I'm stuck in and the buggy fails to move I "get out of the seat" the hard way.

Kayakers have term, "wet exit", that refers to what you must do when your boat is inverted and you can't right it. You pull the skirt, flood the #@%$#!pit and swim out of the inverted boat. It is the inelegant, unscheduled exit. Do we have a term for that in the buggy world?

"Wiping out" seems so generic.

Philip

OBE: Out of Buggy Experience.

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Originally posted by Maven454 OBE: Out of Buggy Experience.

I always thought of that term as for when the kite removes you from the buggy. Not necessarily when you stand up because you got yourself stuck and the kite wont take you where you want to go anymore... A "wet exit" type situation... Dont know of any term for it though...

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Originally posted by pbc but if I underestimate the tenacity of the stuff I'm stuck in and the buggy fails to move I "get out of the seat" the hard way.

I thought he was referring to this part...

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Originally posted by Maven454 Quote: Originally posted by pbc but if I underestimate the tenacity of the stuff I'm stuck in and the buggy fails to move I "get out of the seat" the hard way. I thought he was referring to this part...

Yup, that was the part.

OBE. Good name for it. I had forgotten that one.

Philip

OBE = One Big Eyebrow in regular NZ-speak

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Originally posted by pbc It is the inelegant, unscheduled exit. Do we have a term for that in the buggy world? "Wiping out" seems so generic. Philip

How about ---- rapid egress lol. For those going :puzzled:, its the way an ejection seat manual describes the "exiting the #@%$#!pit" portion of ejecting haha.