I always wondered what the purpose of the stopper on the chicken loop line on my Naish bars was for. Now I know.
Last weekend at Madaket I was on my 9 in decent surf. I was about 20 minutes into my second session and on the outside. I heard a “pop” and something felt a little weird. My chicken loop line had broken in half. But I was still riding and able to control my kite. I quickly gybed and sailed in. Ric was rigging. He landed my kite and I switched to my backup bar. No real problem.
The chicken loop is one line that is looped up to the center lines fitting and then back down through the bar to the loop. The stopper is on one side of the line just below the center line swivel fitting. So that locked against the center line piece and one line held it until I got in.
The interesting thing to me is that there are two ropes that wear and could break. For me the correct one broke and the stopper worked. If the other had broken it would have been “bye bye center lines”. So I got lucky on that one.
