Theory Hooking In

Hooking In:.

Recently lots of people on the forum have been asking about hooking in, mainly how to do it and what you need. So here is my rough guide to bars, harnesses, handles and strops.

Hooking in is a term used to describe flying a kite with it attached to a kite-specific harness the main advantage of Hooking In is to prolong the time you can fly your kite for, you know how much it can hurt after only 10 minutes flying really powered up, other reasons include the ability to perform grab tricks and other moves that require the use of a hand.

Harnesses:.

Harness come in two main styles: seat harnesses and waist harnesses. They are used to attach the kite to you!

Seat harnesses:.

Seat harnesses are harness that not only strap around your waist/hips but also have leg straps to prevent the harness from riding up, generally these harness feel more natural to fly in but do slightly hinder movement, they resemble a giant nappy. These harnesses are the most used in a buggy, although many land boarders and kite surfers use them too for their comfort and usability.

Waist harnesses:.

Waist harnesses are like a giant belt you place around your waist, the common misconception regarding these harnesses is that they end up under your arm pits as they have no straps holding them down this is NOT the case if you have one that fits, the main advantage of these harnesses is that they don't hinder your movement at all, making them the main choice of freestyle land boarders and kite surfers alike.

Waist/Seat harnesses:.

As far as I know there are only two or three harnesses of this type in the shops at the moment, basically these harnesses take the hook position and style of a waist harness and add leg straps to prevent riding up.

Spreader Bars:.

A spreader bar is the bar that is attached to the front of your harness; they have loops on either end for a strap which keeps it on your harness then a bar that has a hook or roller in the middle. The advantage of a hook is that it can be used for strops (more on those later) and chicken-loops (again more on those later). The dis-advantage of a hook is that it will wear out your strop faster than a roller and will not be as smooth. The advantage of a Roller is that it won't wear out the strop as fast and will offer a smoother action than a hook. The disadvantage of a roller is that you cannot attach a chicken-loop to it easily. Some spreaders have a spinning hook this enables you to untwist lines by spinning a bar when t is hooked in or even handles without killers (not recommended).

Control Gear:.

There are two different types of control gear and both can be used with a harness, bars and handles.

Bars:.

Bars are basically, well, bars! The power lines go to each end of the bar and the brake lines to the centre; generally they are attached to a leader line that then goes through a pulley to keep the brakes balanced. A wrist strap (kite killer) is then attached below the bar to the brake lines.

The pros of using a bar are: Easier control of the kite with one hand, useful for grabs ect. The cons are that as you cannot use the brakes to turn the kite it becomes slower; on larger kites a crossover system can be used to apply brake as you turn.

Handles:.

Everyone knows what a handle is!

Strops:.

You get two types of strop, ones that are made out of material (mainly 'Sleeved Spectra Amsteel' for the manufactured ones, but you can make your own using 6mm climbing rope knotted at each end and 3mm pig tails added to attach to your handles) and the type that are made from a material like above but then sleeved inside a plastic tube to protect it. To release the strop from the hook you simply pull the handles towards you and the strop will fall out.

Chicken loops and Donkey Dicks:.

These are both thing you will find on a bar. The chicken loop is normally found on a de-power bar and is a circular piece of plastic tube with a quick release on it, you place this over the hook on the spreader bar.

The Donkey Dick is a strait piece of plastic tube that is either poking towards the bottom of the chicken loop or it attached to the spreader bar in-between the places the hook is joined pointing out wards. The Donkey Dicks job is to keep the chicken loop in the hook if the lines go slack. After you have put the chicken loop in the hook you put the Donkey Dick under the chicken loop and through the centre of the hook to keep the chicken loop in place, remember you can pull the safety quick release you get yourself out of trouble.

By : samkitelad