Self Launching your kite

I watched a newbie crash his kite across the road and into a parked car today while trying to self launch.  Luckily for him there was nobody driving or walking along the road.
With winter coming  you can no longer rely on having somebody out there to launch your kite for you when you hit the beach, so self launching is a skill that everybody needs.
There are two ways to self launch, on the beach and in the water.
Most of the beaches in Auckland have lots of shells and bladder-popping hazards, so I don't tend to beach-launch here, however if you are traveling to some far off island with white sand and have good kite control, then take a look at this video


My biggest tip for beach launching is to make sure you have enough sand on your wingtip - otherwise you may end up in trouble when a gust hits your kite and you are not ready.

In New Zealand I tend to drift launch myself - the most common hazard in drift launching is tangling of your lines.
1 - Set up your kite, bar and lines on the beach in the same way that you would do normally if somebody was going to launch you.  This time take extra care to ensure your lines are not tangled, I usually walk my lines again just to double check.
2 - Hook in to your bar and carefully wrap your lines back up around your bar leaving couple of meters slack at the end.
2a - If you don't like wrapping your lines up, you can do this at the waters edge (if the beach is not too shelly), hook in and walk to your kite, follow the same instructions below, watching that your trailing lines don't catch on anything.
3 - Turn your kite over one half turn, remembering which way you turned it - I always flip my kite over right side to left.
4 - Walk out into the water, and start to unravel  your lines as you walk away, so that your lines are starting to be left behind you.  Do this slowly enough that they are not going to tangle on each other and you can see them floating behind you.
5 - When you have ensured that you have walked out far enough to accommodate the length of your lines and some buffer space (I try to go at least 50m out, if its shallow enough), flip your kite over in the opposite way that you turned it on the beach (in my case I would go left back to right).  Place the kite in the water with the leading edge facing you and push it downwind and away from you with a little twist so that by the time the kite drifts to the end of the lines the leading edge will be facing away from you.
6 - The wind should now grab the kite and you can launch in the same way that you would for a normal water re-launch.

Things to watch for:
Make sure you have enough space for your kite to float to the end of your lines AND extra buffer to allow for any unforeseen events.
Make sure the area is clear of kiters, rocks, obstacles of any kind that your lines could get tangled on.
Watch your lines float behind you as you unwravel them, its usually easy to see if there is a twist or a knot and you can abort easily while you still have your kite.
Keep your board behind you, I have seen people try this and their line gets caught on their board powering up their kite into a kiteloop!
Check your lines and check them again, the last thing you need is crossed lines and an uncontrollable kite after you have let it go.  We all want to get out fast when the wind is good, but take the extra time to ensure you are safe rather than rushing out there :)