The speed kiters are pushing the limits with their quest to regain the 500m speed record. The latest attempt features a 6 foot wide ditch built 3 feet from a wooden fence at its closest. Needless to say if you lose it at speed bouncing over the sand or hitting the fence will hurt.



Unfortunately it has happened twice so far in the contest with yesterday's crash the worst. Basil at Speedkiting reports: "Some really sad news is that Jérôme Bila broke his back during a crash yesterday; he's in hospital and will be air lifted to Cape Town today. Another kiter apparently dropped their kite in front of him near the finish, the lines crossed and 2 kites then flung Jérôme into the air. He landed hard on dry sand and was in a lot of pain."

Earlier in the contest Henne Bradenkamp hit the fence and banged himself up pretty badly. The NAASP boys report: "When we saw the ditch for the first time, all of the speed kiters thought it would be next to impossible to make it down the course “In the ditch,” especially at lower tides, and not risk serious harm if you made a mistake and crashed. The Seb Cat ditch is 4 foot wide at the entrance and 6 foot wide at its widest point. The ditch is dug 3 feet downwind from a wooden chop killer for over half the course. The problem with the ditch and more importantly the wooden chop killer break wall, is that if you run out of wind, say as in a lull, while in the ditch, you can easily fall back and crash into the wooden chop killer at speed. This very scenario happened to Sjouki Bradenkamp’s (fastest woman in the world) father Henne, who smashed into the chop killer at over 40 knots, during a speed run. Henne broke off the nose of his board as it hit first, then crashed into the wooden wall with his front thigh, (luckily he is around 6’4” and 230 pounds) breaking off a 4 inch thick post of wood and seriously bruising his leg. Henne is lucky to be alive and has been limping around for the past week and will be off the water till his leg heals and he builds a new speed board. Also at the entrance of the course, kiters pushing the limit of the water depth, have hit the entry of the course only to blow their line by a few feet and run out of water, What follows then are some spectacular high speed crashes with riders seen kart wheeling over the dry sand bank just down wind. Amazingly enough no one has gone to the hospital yet!" Famous last words!

This is just dumb!!! Yes we all take risks pushing the limit of our gear and experience but this course just makes it not if but when someone gets killed. I hope the kitter is ok and they still get to walk again.

Another view of the course and LeTrench!

Darwin Awards - here we come.

they must have run out of string to mark it out

What F*&^ing idiots.
I wonder if the WSSRC could be held liable for any injuries/deaths for allowing record attempts on such a ridicously dangerous location.

Here's a further update from Basil at Speedkiting, he tracked Jerome down and spoke to him in hospital: "Jérôme gave me the proper sequence of events this evening that lead to the accident.
He said a kiter in front of him crashed and was by the barrier, but their lines were across the trench, so he had nowhere to go. He and his board hit the other kiter's lines, and things went wrong when those lines caught his bar and caused his kite to half loop.
This flung Jérôme about 4 meters into the air before he plummeted back towards the ground.
He had the presence of mind to try and land on the other kite to break his fall, but narrowly missed.
He landed very hard on his back on sand, after which he immediately knew something was wrong.

He waited 40 minutes for the ambulance to arrive, all the while getting colder. They then got stuck in the wet sand and had to get pulled out with the help of Taro's bakkie and many kiters pushing too.
He spent the night at the Luderitz hospital and was flown to Johannesburg the next morning."

Un-bloody-believable!
Anyone can see that's a job for a D9 not a backhoe.

Seriously, I can't see how anyone could imagine going 90 klicks down a 1.8 m path could be safe. That's just nuts.

This is crossing the boundary to land-sailing. They're just using a thin layer of water as a lubricant between the board and the sand.

I'd be reluctant to view any record set on this a sailing speed record. The same as I don't view the speeds of land-yachts as sailing speed records.

thats just odd.

So it's not quite as bad as it looks, they kite at high tide on an expanse of 6" deep water. For the run to be valid they have to stay over the trench.