Foil Kites for Foil Boards?

[Timothy Grossnickle]

Am back from the dead after a total knee replacement and broken pelvis from a cycling crash looking forward to the new season on the west coast of Florida. Ch1 19 working incredibly well after T's internal strap mods. Thanks much T!!

Am working on learning to ride a race board in light wind looping the Ch1 19. The Ch1 19 loops quicker than Ch2 22 and is proving ideal for jibing race board in light air. Am getting help from two young racers one ranked top five in USA. They have switched away from race boards and now fly on foil boards. This week the better of the two came smiling to me saying he had something that I wouldn't believe. A sponsored rider by Cabrinah the better of the two smiled as he rolled out an Ozone foil race kite designed for foil boards.

A super high aspect kite the Ozone bridles similar to Flysurfer. Today he told me he thought the Ozone faster than Cabrinah and better upwind. The power going to auto zenith impressed him. This lift made it easier to jibe and tack. He also liked the durability aspect of no bladders to fail as well as no pump and the super light weight with all of the bridles proving a bit of a drawback.

Given PLK's success with high aspect bridled foils for carts I'm wondering about two things. Are others on this forum seeing high aspect foils powering foil boards? Does anyone know of a PL kite specifically designed for foil boards on water? In this regard, after flying a couple of P2's I wouldn't consider the P2 as the answer for foil boards. The P2 seemed not much faster across the water than Ch1 and Ch2 and definitely not as fast as the old F1.

Comments and great thoughts welcome....

Tim

[aatamian]

Well, it seems that the low wind limit with foilboards nowadays is the minimal wind it takes to keep a Flysurfer flying.
With the single skin hi performance kites from PLK coming sometime soon (?), this may even extend the lower wind range of the activity. Wait and see...
Regarding pure performance/upwind/speed in normal winds, no clue, sorry, but I guess these new hi aspect AR kites must be difficult to beat in these domains.

Regards,
Avo

[tungsten]

Hi Tim, hi Avo,

great to hear the rag is working for you Tim. RE: foils, I'm not a light wind specialist, if it's under 12-13kn I usually can't be bothered these days. But what I see here on the beach, the foil boards are the first out, from 9kn on they are cruising at considerable speed. On normal pump kites that is. Hi AR foils are said to be a lot less comfortable than ARCs / pumps / FS-type foil kites, so I guess it'll remain a specialist tool for at least the near future. Single skin kites are really interesting as Avo said, they go very low due to minimal weight, thus I can't see how they would relaunch, so I expect them to be a specialist tool as well. Race boards are getting less use where I kite, peeps tend to sell them and get into foil boards.

cheers & stay in one piece, tungsten

[arcsrule]

i've been trying nto find an affordable foilboard for over a year now. if i efvger get one, my kites of choice will be Charger1, 12m. I've been flying speed 3,21 now for a few years in 9mph with a mako king. Keep us informed onn your Foilboard.

[Timothy Grossnickle]

Hi T,

Am with you on your light wind sentiments. Although I'm hoping race boards don't go the way of the Dodo bird. I own two. Our season just starting here on West Coast of Florida. Am not so sure about going over to a foil board which takes away the feeling of flying over rollers. I normally bike in light wind.

Interesting development on modded Ch1 19 which was working flawlessly after the mod with all straps open. Thought I'd try it with the shoulder straps tight and maybe get it to turn a little faster. I launched it and it immediately hand clapped and collapsed before I left the beach. I then opened up the straps and it worked fine.

Wonder how you are using your modded Ch1's. Do you tighten the shoulder straps?

Regards,
Tim

[Hardwater Kiter]

To the best of my knowledge high AR kites like the Chrono aren't specific to foil boarding. They kite has a much broader range of use than most people give it credit and I used Chronos for touring and racing last season and loved them. For perspective, the only kite in the PL lineage that comes close to the performance of the Chrono is the old F-Arc. ( As Chris Brent points out it took 12 years for someone to catch up to the F-Arc)

Both are AR 7 (The PLK Vapor btw is about the same AR as a Charger. Not really High AR by today's terms) in fact the Chrono shares a lot of the same flight traits as an F-Arc which is why I enjoy flying them so much. It's F-Arc performance but with actual depower and it can haul downwind.

There are a number of kites out there that possess the same traits that the Chrono or Sonic or R-1 offer in a less race performance package. For example the Matrixx 2. Less efficient but very close and much more user friendly.