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With kitesurfing you also have the lines in the mix. The biggest waves I personally surfed were 8m (what can I say, I was young and stupid). One guy dropped his kite and the next thing he was standing on the shore with every section of his kite ripped out. We were all feeling sorry for his ruined kite but he was happy to get out of there alive. Apparently he got tangled in his lines underwater and thought he was done but by some miracle managed to get out.

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Something similar happened to me as well, kite dropped in on shore winds in fairly small surf (max 2 meters), but pretty soon the lines were around my legs. Tried to cut the lines using the knive in my harness, but couldn’t get loose. Luckily I washed up on shore, but was a pretty scary experience.

Largest waves I windsurfed was about 4 meters in Maui, went head first down the wave, mast got stuck in the coral reef, snapped like it was nothing. Even at 4 meters, waves are pretty powerful.

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