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The price of success…?

The very recent death of Dutch kitesurfer Ronald, has once again plunged the kitesurf community into great disarray and greater sadness, right at the moment when, over in Paris, one of the biggest international shows glorifying the sport opens its doors for business…

Like some kind of signifier of evil, a series of accidents, some more serious than others, has occurred over the last few weeks everywhere from America to Argentina to Australasia. Then, one autumn Wednesday, tragedy for one rider in the northern hemisphere is followed by another down south in Tasmania a week later…

Some people, looking for reassurance, point out that the numbers of fatalities in kitesurfing are still way below what you’d se in diving or shooting… Others, more fatalistic perhaps, simply put it down to the ‘price of success’, that there’s nothing you can do, kitesurfing’s a dangerous sport and there will always be deaths resulting...

Meanwhile, every manufacturer is out there banging on about how their safety system is the best in existence…
You see, as things stand today, and you’d better believe it for your own good, safety and death have become nothing more than the chosen weapons of an unprecedented marketing war!!!

I dream of seeing RRD, Naish, Cabrinha, Airush, Gaastra and all the rest, round a table TODAY to discuss and decide on one single, simple and, above all, efficient safety system used by all manufacturers!!!

Because although today it might be Ronald, tomorrow it could just as easily be you, me, your best mate, your brother, lover…
Get real everyone, before it’s too late!

Philou