Up to now we have been able to have our first prototype perform similar to the Crossbow or the Nova by using a similar bridle system but while testing we encounter the some safety and performance problems:
Good: It does de-power 100% which I can see benefit hardcore surfboard style wave riders.
It sits solid in the window, a little back but super stable.
Not so good: Compared to a regular kite I can not see any performance gains at all. The kite does not jump higher, does not generate more controllable power or is any faster in the turns. De-power is all or nothing, no gradual de-power as on normal 4-line kites. You have to constantly turn it on and of to keep going.
The bar pressure does not allow for comfortable kiting, I can see lots of riders develop arm and shoulder problems in the future. When the kite rolls or get flipped over by a wave when, you chances of re-launching are less the 50% . A good thing we have waves close to the shore.
All that said,
EH SLE-Bow version 1 |
Good: It does de-power 100% which I can see benefit hardcore surfboard style wave riders.
It sits solid in the window, a little back but super stable.
Not so good: Compared to a regular kite I can not see any performance gains at all. The kite does not jump higher, does not generate more controllable power or is any faster in the turns. De-power is all or nothing, no gradual de-power as on normal 4-line kites. You have to constantly turn it on and of to keep going.
The bar pressure does not allow for comfortable kiting, I can see lots of riders develop arm and shoulder problems in the future. When the kite rolls or get flipped over by a wave when, you chances of re-launching are less the 50% . A good thing we have waves close to the shore.
All that said,
We continue working and now designed a new model in the hope to resolve some of the issues we had with the first one.
EH Ripper SLE version 2
It seems that the bigger the kite the more pronounced the performance issues are, so we build a smaller one, (9M) packed lots of projected surface in a low AR kite and thinned the LE and profiles for faster turning.
