The Reason Why We Down Size Kites

[Rosa]

Lately i've been hearing of alot of stories and have had many people talk about there kites railing and being un-able turn turn there kites.

all c and flat kites currently "rest" on their foward leader lines so when you pull in on the de power strap you lenghen the back lines making them slack (and this is espically notible on Flat kites) causing less of a reaction with the kite because you have to pull back farther and take out this slack before the kite will turn

anyone who is having truble turning their kite and have alot/more than half
down size kites please before we have anouther accident (due to railing)like power lines, getting draged into the beach or building

short: a kite is more responsive with no De-power pulled in

enjoy, good winds and no wories

[ricki]

Steering is one reason for down sizing. The main one though in my experience is to reduce kite force by using a smaller kite.

Flat kites (not BOW, don't want any more trademark suits, right?), can be very substantially depowered. You can sacrifice steering as you say particularly when trying to use too large a kite with excessive depowering. Saw a guy doing this on Saturday. He had no understanding of how to trim his 14 m flat kite despite being out in 18 kt.+ winds.

Compounding things, he had no intention of getting in the water lacking sufficient skill but just wanted to practice on land with too large a kite. I wouldn't fly anything larger than a 5 m in moderate winds for land practice while developing skills. Anything larger is asking for problems.

[Rosa]

Thanks, because you and I sereously don't neet a law suit right now (or ever, Ill edit that) Did you get a suit for that?
and for land practice id try to go a size under what i'd use for water

(im shooting myself in the foot & please dont hate me)
the cons and the story should sound familer from Rick (Thanks)
personaly I fly c kites and when im on the water I ususlly fly more than powered (I've matched numbers when on my 20m) and i know im asking for it but i've noted that keeping the kite low an edging hard by stomping the trailing edge you can over fly the kite forward of wind window you can auctully use a kite i higher conditions with good control and still feel comfterable
though I do state this with more than exteme caution and to anyone this also veries with the kite you use
When the kite is flying forward of the wind window lulls and gusts in rappid succion are deadly and not do not do anything fast/ with speed
this works well on the water because the waters passive but in contions beyond this (sometimes only 1-2 more) when you get to land so its so much harder to maintain control on the beach footing wise so please downsize before it gets this bad

an example of this in action is my iocn photo

please mind your edique when doing so(like in crowed kitng areas and beaches) by not doing this...

but please only use this only to help you to get in and down ...

and if i havent made this plain enough if you use this without proper sense,I practice the 2nd amendent (I OWN FIREARMS)

[ricki]

Keeping the kite low and edging very hard has been use with four and even two line LEI's to try to deal with overpowered conditions. Andy Hurdman shows off this technique a few years ago in a mounting winds from a cold front squall line at the Islamorada competition in 2003.



The problem with intentionally going out overpowered particularly with a C kite (still a problem with flat kites) is that you may get too overpowered. There was a case of an Olympic windsurfing competitor from South Korea. He was a very strong kiter as well. He would edge very hard and would be dismayed when his chickenloops would break under the load. He made one of stainless steel and was very proud of the strength of it. He was out intentionally in a cold front squall line perhaps not so different from the one shown with Andy. It was a mistake, his last one and ironically, his stainless steel chickenloop still broke.

btw, do a search for kiteboarding and trademark suit and you will see what I mean. It is a real mess. I would think an infringement suit for misuse of the term BOW, considering royalties are involved would be far more serious and likely to stick in the legal system.

[Rosa]

true its very hard on gear, it wore on my sheeting line so much that one day in light conditions it broke. you may notice if you do it alot, youll be saping everything. chicken loops speder bars sheeting lines and your board in thirds

new persoal not putting "kiteboarding trademark lawsuits" in any search engine and by the time you get to the second page your head will be in a spin

ill keep in mind anytime i need a term for flat's


did you or anyone go kiting early this morning,
west coast was unusly big waves and easy going winds and complety freezing

[ricki]

It was supposed to come on fairly strong out of the North today in the SE. We had some near perfect smooth faced groundswells refracted in from the strong NW winds and the Florida Current. Perfect ramps for boosting. Unfortunately, the wind fizzled by quiting time. Anyone else grab some watr time today (sigh)?