Desert Kite Buggying Diary

THE DRAGON
I’d dropped down one very long & steep wall into the trough & zipped up to the ridge of the next dune and waited there for the others.
I saw Giorgio & the DB-I catapulted over the ridge I’d just crossed. Giorgio was flying through the air with the buggy tumbling over and over as both hit the sand close to the trough.
It looked very nasty so buggied over to Giorgio to see how much he’d been damaged. Fortunately, just one kneepad and & one elbow pad had taken the brunt of the impact, so nothing was broken.

















DAMAGED KNEE & ELBOW PADS

He removed his helmet and his face was covered in sand with him swearing about the kite being no good.
Brig was stifling a laugh “Crazy Italian”, I said out loud.
He seemed shaken but was putting on a brave angry face.
The impact had blown all the air out of the rear left hand tyre and we thought it was a puncture at the time.
A spare wheel was fitted , Giorgio dusted much of the sand off & deeper into the Dragons’ belly we went.

Just to show the Dragon wasn’t going to let anybody off, Brig badly stuck her Razor on a dune crest. We all walked back to help her with me moaning as usual. A little more digging. Angelo & Giorgio feeling very strong lifted the rear of the 650 kg Razor clear over the dune crest.
When in front knowing the other guys hadn’t been in the Dragon before, I would occasionally look back to see if I could still see their kites. Where’s Angelo? I headed back with much difficulty I might add and his kite was down with a broken leader line on his right handle.
So the dragon bites again but not as much as before.
Finally, we made it on to a large sabkah, which was the start of a long 8 km (point to point) upwind tack. My longest single tack on that stretch was 3.3. kms. Checking my GPS download, I’d actually buggied 20 kms to tack this 8km upwind.



















UPWIND TACKING

Giorgio & I followed the black sealed road for about a kilometer but Angelo went off in the wrong direction, which necessitated him having to drag his buggy & kite with help from Brig under a power line. Back into the dunes on the last leg back to the ghaf was easy for me as I’d been through this part many times before & recognize almost every dune, shrub & tree along the way.
Back at the car Wendy & Pete along with Francesco who had later turned up during the day were messing about.

While waiting for Giorgio, Angelo & I were laughing about our adventure in the Dragon. After some time, Giorgio arrived with helmet damaged. The Dragon had taken one last bite at him before he made it back. He told us he’d lost control on one of the dunes with a spectacular OBE landing him on his head.
“Crazy Italian!!!”


Sand-Yeti - 7 March 2009

Posted by FluffyWOO at 20:00 |