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Strutless kite in development on Maui

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dafish
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Re: Strutless kite in development on Maui

Postby dafish » Tue Apr 09, 2013 10:46 pm

The Paipo looks like a great lightwind fun board. I shaped myself an Alaia for those light days and it is a great board to ride. I ride it finless and rely on the edge and concave. Goes upwind like no other board, planes in a second, and is uber smooth in the chop. Once you get going on a wave it is REALLY fast and can get squirrely in a nano second. Very fun board, wish I had it at the start of our season and not the end. Can't wait until I have it dialed in and transitions are smooth. Enjoy the Paipo!

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Re: Strutless kite in development on Maui

Postby Osprey1 » Tue Apr 09, 2013 11:12 pm

Yea the Paipo is dialed. I'm loving mine more every session. What's nice is that it has both the properties of an Alaia and a surfboard. For example the Paipo is great for surface spins and light wind, but because of the rocker and fins its also really good in the waves especially small peelers. I like jumping it too as it's light and sticks to your feet :).

For those that haven't seen a Paipo in person it's made using snowboard construction and thus it's very light and strong, plus it looks cool.

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Re: Strutless kite in development on Maui

Postby tautologies » Tue Apr 09, 2013 11:47 pm

Osprey1 wrote:Yea the Paipo is dialed. I'm loving mine more every session. What's nice is that it has both the properties of an Alaia and a surfboard. For example the Paipo is great for surface spins and light wind, but because of the rocker and fins its also really good in the waves especially small peelers. I like jumping it too as it's light and sticks to your feet :).

For those that haven't seen a Paipo in person it's made using snowboard construction and thus it's very light and strong, plus it looks cool.
yeah exactly. I don't think I will be able to throw as much off the top as a regular surfboard..it felt smoother, but the fins does make a difference.

I can see keeping *ALL THE BOARDS*, but just from that one session I think the paipo will be in my car a lot. I have yet to try it in ultra chop.

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Re: Strutless kite in development on Maui

Postby alkiter » Thu Apr 11, 2013 11:55 am

Got three sessions on 13m Cloud and impressions so far are very positive. Biggest problems are it's lonely out when wind is light and current strong, and second having to wait a long time for people to bring it back when I let them try it.
Seriously, about a dozen people have tried it and everyone has liked it. Biggest surprise is how stable it is, and how fast and tight it turns.
Greg warned that it's different, and it is, but in a pleasant way, in a word it's nimble.
Who would have thought that you don't need all those struts to have some fun.

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Re: Strutless kite in development on Maui

Postby jespin4845 » Fri Apr 12, 2013 1:07 am

ozonelevel wrote:Got three sessions on 13m Cloud and impressions so far are very positive. Biggest problems are it's lonely out when wind is light and current strong, and second having to wait a long time for people to bring it back when I let them try it.
Seriously, about a dozen people have tried it and everyone has liked it. Biggest surprise is how stable it is, and how fast and tight it turns.
Greg warned that it's different, and it is, but in a pleasant way, in a word it's nimble.
Who would have thought that you don't need all those struts to have some fun.
whats up man, i used to kite at your spot so i know the conditions and current, whats the range on the kite knots wise for you? any 200 lbs guys try it, what did they think?

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Re: Strutless kite in development on Maui

Postby alkiter » Fri Apr 12, 2013 11:33 am

jespin4845 wrote:
whats up man, i used to kite at your spot so i know the conditions and current, whats the range on the kite knots wise for you? any 200 lbs guys try it, what did they think?
Hey, so far I have it out in 8 to 18 mph. I'm 150lbs so was a bit overpowered at the high end. A couple of 200lb riders tried it in 10 to 15 mph with a Door and Sector boards and they liked it. One ordered a 17m.

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Re: Strutless kite in development on Maui

Postby aeberl » Fri Apr 12, 2013 2:39 pm

I am looking to replace my 8m SS Rally for wave riding.
16 to 20 knot winds, 80kg rider, 6' strapless poly-surfboard, 3' to 10' peeling surf, side/off wind.
What size strutless kite would do the job?
How does its handling compare to the SS Rally?

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Re: Strutless kite in development on Maui

Postby rowboat » Thu Apr 18, 2013 5:56 pm

Interesting how so many of you guys are buying the huge versions of this kite. I bought 8 & 10m and I have been overpowered every single time I've ridden them so far - until yesterday.

I had a great session at Ocean Beach in San Francisco yesterday on the 8m Cloud. Wind was 17-23 avg 20 or just under, whereas day before was avg low/mid-20's and I was somewhat over-powered on the 8m.

There were other guys on 8's but they were underpowered. If I had been on my old Ocean Rodeo Razors I would have gone out on a 10m. I swapped and rode another guys Cabrinha Drifter 9m towards the end of the session and it was doable but at the lower end of the wind range for that kite.

Here is the wind graph at OB from the past two days:
Attachments
obkc.png
obkc.png (46.55 KiB) Viewed 3255 times

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Re: Strutless kite in development on Maui

Postby Dirk » Thu Apr 18, 2013 6:59 pm

Because the large sizes work really good in very low wind. I was using my 17 last weekend in what I believe was around 6-7 knots with a North Nugget. Never kited in wind that low before and was totally amazed to have power to speed around and go upwind with ease. Everybody was staying on the beach beside a guy with a large Flysurfer.

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Re: Strutless kite in development on Maui

Postby boardriding maui » Thu Apr 18, 2013 7:56 pm

Thank you very, very much rowboat. I feel this discussion is best left among the riders so I've been staying out of it lately. But you address what I feel is a critical point that I'd like to add my comments to in the hopes that any riders considering these kites will have as clear as possible understanding.

The vast majority of riders that have gotten Clouds have understood and enjoyed it. I'm SUPER STOKED for this. My huge thanks to our riding community!

For the small number of riders that haven't appreciated the performance, I think there have been two main causes. Not understanding or accepting that the windrange is different from conventional kites. And/or assuming that since the depower range makes it possible to ride them beyond there intended range that the handling should still be the same into a much bigger useable windrange.

Impressions are always evolving. My current impression is that most riders will find the size of the useable windrange for the Cloud similar to most other kites around two meters bigger. Both for getting going in the low end as well as for getting overpowered in the high end. I'd love to develop one size kite with awesome performance in all winds but till I do I'm proud of unique performance of the Cloud within its intended range.

This is off the topic but while I'm on my soapbox: Since other brands have announced intentions to launch strutless kites there has been more discussion about the character of all strutless kites. Having flown a couple of these my feeling is clear that just as all kites with 3 (or 5 or 2 or whatever) struts do not perform the same, it is same for kites without struts. This is why I describe the Cloud's performance as unique.

During earlier development I had some different theories, but since flying some other strutless kites I now feel the absence of struts has its biggest affect on performance due to its effect on weight. There are infinitely many variable that will influence a kite's performance but my current thinking is that bridling for example plays a bigger role than strut-count. I'm as interested as everyone else in shorter and simpler bridles, but not at the sacrifice of performance. This is a whole discussion in itself that I could go on and on about, so I better leave it at that.

Thanks also to Dirk for reinforcing the ideal windrange for the 17.

Hope now that spring has sprung that more riders are getting more time on the water. :)


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