French Box Kite: down into Lake Ontario

by Tim Sly
(Toronto, Canada)

A home-made yellow 2M (6'6") span modified French military box flew reliably and extremely well. With a NW wind blowing from the land I flew it up and over the shore of Lake Ontario, which is one of Canada's great lakes - inland seas.

Reached the end of 150M line way out over the water. Then the wind dropped. No way to avoid it heading into the water.

Then I realized that the same aerodynamic forces that keeps the kite in the air also act to create drag in the water. It took almost an hour and a half to slowly winch the kite to the shore. It got me thinking about the possibility of a 'dissolvable' link in the bridle to at least allow collapsed 'streamlined' retrieval in water.