I had a session the other day with my Cabrinha Crossbow IDS 11m from 2009. The wind was about 20 knots. I made a small jump when suddenly a pulley broke. The kite started to loop and I totally lost the control over it. The water was deep and I did my best to wind up the lines on the bar in an attempt to reach kite. Unfortunately did I not manage to reach the kite before it was dragged up over some rocks with me after. I hit the rocks quite bad but luckily didn’t get injured except for some minor scratches and bruises. It went worse for the kite which not only got its foil tear apart but had its bladder punctured =(

I have Cabrinha kites from 2007, 2008 and 2009. I never had any problems with my older kites, but this Cabrinha Crossbow IDS from 2009 seems to be equipped with bad pulleys, this was actually the second pulley on the same kite that broke. The first time a pulley broke was during a simple air gybe transition, but things never turned bad that time and I had the pulley replaced with a new one. Now when a second pulley broke I kind of lost my reliance for this kite. I love Cabrinha kites and I have two other Cabrinha Crossbow kites from 2009, 9m and 13m, but they now feel a bit uncomfortable to ride with. What if another pulley breaks when I´m 5 meter up in the air, things can turn really bad…

Anyway, an email to the Cabrinha support was all that was needed to get a new pulley. Here is the answer I got from them:

We’re very sorry to hear about your pulleys breaking on you while riding. For future reference, the best option in any situation where the kite is not under your control (and your safety or those around you is being compromised), is to activate the IDS system by pushing QR1 away from your body. This should effectively flag the kite on the water so you can then determine the next best course of action.

We would recommend replacing ALL the pulleys on your kite. We’re happy to offer you a free 2011 replacement kit under warranty even though your kite is no longer within the normal covered warranty period. All you need to do is provide us with an address and cover the shipping costs with a valid credit card. The bridle lines are the same stuff we’ve been using since 2009 without any issues.

Also, we couldn’t open the file you attached for some reason. Either way, we can still offer you the replacement kit if you’re interested. The kite should perform normally once you install the new pulley kit.