Tying Down Kites

Loop'n'hitched to a mesh fence

Let me think of a few examples:

• OK, a fence railing with diamond mesh to the ground.
• A pipe coming out of a water meter.
• A link in a heavy chain.
• An outdoor bench seat with separated planks.

It's not always convenient or even possible to pass a winder around six times in these situations. So my pet method here is the Loop and Hitch.

For peace of mind, you can use a third hitch if you want to.

However, I have done experiments at home and two hitches seemed utterly secure with a long loop of braided Dacron! In fact, I went out the following day and put up the big Fresh Wind sled in gusts to 38 kph. It was left up there for a couple of hours and the two hitches held, no problem! See the photo of the fence.

The winder or reel has no contribution, so it can just sit on the ground or anywhere else.

Finally, it's just common sense really, but avoid tying off to anything with sharp corners. You can imagine why, with all that tension and constant movement :-)

I once tied off to a square pole with no problems — but the corners were well rounded.

Cinched to a short pole

Let's see... some examples come to mind:

• A tap.
• A capped fence pole.
• A knob on children's play equipment.
• The rear-vision mirror on the side of your car. (Small kites only!)
• The short pole in the photo, with small cylinder out the side near the top.

In these cases, we can use the Cinch method. Again, the winder can sit anywhere; most likely it will end up on the ground.

If you don't take on board anything else from this page, don't forget the Cinch! It's just amazing how simple and useful this attachment method is. If you go to tie down anywhere, ask yourself—is there any possible way I could just Cinch it instead? It's such a quick and easy solution :-)

Dog stake

These are simple devices that look like large corkscrews. The handle on top is a handy tie-off point for kites.

It's pretty obvious from looking at it; you just screw the device deep into the sand.

Use the Cinch method for a device like the one in the photo. In fact, if the handle is a loop-style one, you can still use the Cinch—around the shaft and below the handle. Removing the device is just a matter of unscrewing it back out of the sand.

Is your kite a little special and/or pricey? Consider going the extra mile as suggested to me by newsletter subscriber Glenn Mitchell.

Tip covers

Glenn made the following points:

• Make an end cap to cover the pointy end of the stake during transport. Tether the cap to the stake handle with some light line so you don't lose it. Using shock cord will really keep the cap in place.
• Remember, if the handle is suitable, passing a stick through the handle will give you great leverage while driving the stake deep into the sand.
• If you are tempted to tie off to the D ring on the swivel, don't! Doing a Cinch or Loop-n-Hitch to the handle is much more secure. The bigger the kite, the more relevant this is :-)
• Consider tethering a straight stake to the dog stake, to be used as an additional layer of security and stability.

Tool-bag pin-down

I do this a lot. For all but my heaviest-pulling kites, the tradesman's tool bag with miscellaneous kite stuff is always on hand. Metal spring-scales, chunky wooden winders, and a couple of metal tent-pegs make very useful contributions to the weight of the bag :-)   I don't even bother to use a knot for small or medium sized kites; two vertical turns of flying line around the entire bag does the trick, with the winder jammed up behind the bag as a backstop. For quite small kites, you don't even need to put turns around the bag. Incidentally, this works perfectly over sand as well.

If your kite easily drags your bag along, consider the weight lifting method ;-)

Lug one of those circular weight plates into your car before going for a fly. Out at the field, it's another opportunity for using the Loop'n'Hitch method. You use that hole in the middle, and perhaps stuff some rag in there if the sides of the hole seem sharp. Perhaps you could get a metal file to it one day, to round off or bevel those edges.

If your kite is light pulling, it might prove much more convenient to simply plonk the weight plate over the line, pinning it to the ground. The winder can be pulled up to the downwind edge of the weight as a stop. Mind you, if the wind direction swings around to a large degree, you might need to adjust things to prevent the line pulling out to one side.

Some heavy objects have no hole, but have a convenient part to which the flying line can be attached with a Cinch. I remember taking a small but quite heavy vice out flying once! The turning handle with a knob on each end made a handy tie-off point. In fact, I have used this very same vice to illustrate the Cinch Tie-down method. Scroll back a bit; it's in one of those yellow call-out boxes up there.

Finally, here's an idea for tying down kites that are small. Although you don't have access to great amounts of sand at an inland flying field, there's nothing stopping you from keeping a few quite small sandbags handy. No handles would be necessary. You could take them out and simply plonk one down over the line, with the winder up against the downwind side of the bag. Come to think of it, a small plastic drum or large plastic bottle filled with water could be used in exactly the same way.

Cinched to a tent-peg

Possibly the most commonly used way to anchor single-liners over dirt or grass is to drive a stake into the ground and then tie off to that. If the ground is not particularly dry and hard, a hefty shove with a solid shoe or boot might be enough. Otherwise, this idea also requires a hammer.

These three possibilities would cover most light pulling kites, of whatever type. Small parafoils or medium sized deltas for example:

• Purpose-made kite stakes, featuring a not-so-sharp pointy end plus a handle or ball at the top, just asking to be cinched :-) Either steel or hard plastic material is used.
• Tent pegs (some commonsense required regarding matching the size of peg to the size of kite!).
• Sharpened hardwood dowels, with a notch near the blunt end, for a secure tie-off. There you go—some DIY ;-)

I'll be blunt—anchoring a hard pulling kite with a simple, straight-in ground-stake doesn't seem like a good idea :-| If it goes, it goes suddenly, whereas a shifting weight at least gives you a sporting chance of catching it!

How can you tie off? The quickest and easiest way would be to Cinch the line to the stake. See the earlier illustration of the Cinch Tie-down method.

If the stake is a tent peg with a hole rather than a hook, then the Loop'n'Hitch method will be totally secure. Again, see the earlier illustration of this method.