The cool thing about working and riding at REAL is that we get to ride every kite that hits the market. With the advent of the bow kite this fall has been particularly technical. We have had the opportunity to tech out on and ride all major brands of bow kites including the Cabrinha Crossbow and Switchblade, Slingshot Turbo Diesel, GK Sonic, Takoon Nova, Liquid Force Assault, Airush Halo, Naish Shockwave, Best Waroo and the Ocean Rodeo One.
The first questions with this kite was who is it for? I mean half of the kiteboarding companies market it for relaunch and safety and half of the manufactures are marketing it to the advanced wave rider. A lot of our clients are looking at the Bow kite and saying yeah it is cool but is it for me? The answer is YES.
The Bow kite is suitable for a large range of kiteboarders and conditions. It does have a huge depower range. If you are not too overpowered you can let go of the bar and you literally stop in your tracks and the kite falls to the side of the window. For relaunch all you need to do is keep tension on the lines, pull one of the outside lines in about a foot, and the kite will roll over and relaunch. Jumping.... Once you figure out the load points of jumping this kite you can really get some superior hang time. Oh yeah and wave riding... If you ride in side off waves the amount of depower that you can attain when you hit it off the lip is really nice. You won"t get pulled out of the back of the wave. So if you are not sure if the bow kite is for you, well the answer is that it works well for all kiteboarders of all ability levels.
“The bows have changed my view of wave riding forever. I finally feel like I am actually surfing and not just following my kite. Complete depower means you can position yourself anywhere you want to be on a wave at anytime, and draw what ever line you can dream up. It"s really quite simple: if you ride waves you need a bow in your quiver.†- Trevor Murchie
The second question is how does it work? Here is where you need to really use our imagination. We will take the size of a 12m to explain it. When the bar is in the middle of the chicken loop (neutral power) the kite will have the power of a 12m. When you push the bar away from you to depower, the kite hinges off of the front bridal and dumps all of the power. This makes the effective surface area of the kite (how much kite is exposed to the wind) similar to what you would have on a 10m or maybe even smaller. When you sheet the bar in to power up the effective area of the 12m kite will increase to the power similar to that of a 14m. You get 3 kite sizes in one kite.
Now lets get down to the tech. Here is what we found about the different Bow kites that we rode:
The first questions with this kite was who is it for? I mean half of the kiteboarding companies market it for relaunch and safety and half of the manufactures are marketing it to the advanced wave rider. A lot of our clients are looking at the Bow kite and saying yeah it is cool but is it for me? The answer is YES.
The Bow kite is suitable for a large range of kiteboarders and conditions. It does have a huge depower range. If you are not too overpowered you can let go of the bar and you literally stop in your tracks and the kite falls to the side of the window. For relaunch all you need to do is keep tension on the lines, pull one of the outside lines in about a foot, and the kite will roll over and relaunch. Jumping.... Once you figure out the load points of jumping this kite you can really get some superior hang time. Oh yeah and wave riding... If you ride in side off waves the amount of depower that you can attain when you hit it off the lip is really nice. You won"t get pulled out of the back of the wave. So if you are not sure if the bow kite is for you, well the answer is that it works well for all kiteboarders of all ability levels.
“The bows have changed my view of wave riding forever. I finally feel like I am actually surfing and not just following my kite. Complete depower means you can position yourself anywhere you want to be on a wave at anytime, and draw what ever line you can dream up. It"s really quite simple: if you ride waves you need a bow in your quiver.†- Trevor Murchie
The second question is how does it work? Here is where you need to really use our imagination. We will take the size of a 12m to explain it. When the bar is in the middle of the chicken loop (neutral power) the kite will have the power of a 12m. When you push the bar away from you to depower, the kite hinges off of the front bridal and dumps all of the power. This makes the effective surface area of the kite (how much kite is exposed to the wind) similar to what you would have on a 10m or maybe even smaller. When you sheet the bar in to power up the effective area of the 12m kite will increase to the power similar to that of a 14m. You get 3 kite sizes in one kite.
Now lets get down to the tech. Here is what we found about the different Bow kites that we rode:
