What happened at Little Acorns in Miami.
Dave Gomberg says that when people start flying the big kites, they can plan on burning up a $100 bill every time they open the bag. While this may not be literally true, it only takes one mishap to make the adage come home to roost. Such a mishap happened in Miami at Little Acorns this year.
One of the downsides of dealing with big kites is that once up, a big kite may need several people to get it down safely. If severe weather is forcast, having an adequate number of experienced personnel available and onsite is crucial.
At Miami on Saturday afternoon, the people pulling down the Trilobites on the north end of the beach did everything right. They had them down, tails to the wind, and they were sitting on the tails waiting for the Crash Bag, when the wind reversed direction, at 35 miles an hour.
That inflated the kites, balled up the people sitting on them, and rolled the whole 'kit-and-kaboodle' towards the water, rolling over the beach chairs and umbrellas (and the people on them) and overturning the storage box (4x4x8 and anchored with pipes).
Some quick thinking kiters collapsed the mouths of the Trilobites, or it could have been much worse.
These are some of the pictures of the damage to one of the Trilobites. Event Organizers and OPK people should pause and consider that this is the risk that they are asking owners of big kites to take every time the kites come out of the bag.
The Trilobite laid out for assesment. Notice severed right tentacle.
That one is even worse than it looks.
On the one above, the tear goes thru the black reinforcement. It will need to be replaced.
This big purple tear on the front (bridle side) is the worst. It is just over 6 feet long. Actually, we are using it as an access port to effect the other repairs. The downside is this tear goes right thru a few bridle points. The the bridle line and the internal body line need to be removed, the black patches need to be replaced, the repair effected, then the lines re-tied.
There is a page showing the progress of the repairs to the Trilobite:
http://members.aol.com/gdhvn/progress.html