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Re: Strutless kite in development on Maui

Posted: Sat Dec 08, 2012 11:23 pm
by Ecoastprock
That thing looks so fun! Siked to follow the progression of these kites. Keep 'me coming!

Re: Strutless kite in development on Maui

Posted: Mon Dec 10, 2012 6:22 pm
by ed257
Do these strutless kites require the use of superior fabrics in the construction?

Does LE inflation pressure need to be a bit higher than most other kites (>8 psi)?

Ed

Re: Strutless kite in development on Maui

Posted: Wed Dec 26, 2012 9:07 pm
by boardriding maui
dafiah - Thanks.
alexrider - Thanks.
John-B - Thanks for your suggestion.
Gigi - Bummer about your site.
GregK - Thanks for your comments. I totally agree. The only time I've had any kind of failure on the kites is when I ditched my bar in the waves, it got stuck on bottom, loading the kite up massively for twenty rinse cycles in the impact zone, getting sucked out until the lines went tight, pinned there till the next set wave slammed it, tumbling in on the whitewater till the lines when tight again before getting sucked back out again. Was an ugly situation and reminded me why a bar needs to float. Anyway, point being - LE and all seams held, but the forces blew a hold in the canopy material. Perhaps a heavier material would have behaved differently. Although, with the forces involved in that situation, I think the failure would have found its way to the next weakest link, perhaps the seams? From beatings I've taken in the past, conventional kites didn't holdup as well. From a performance perspective, I'm totally convinced about the value of making it as light as possible. From a durability perspective, I see bladders as the general area for failure. Haven't seen a solution to this.
turfAndsurf - OK, will try. I'll admit that often I put the camera away and just go ride when the surf is decent, but I'll try to improve.
Ecoastprock - Thanks!
ed257 - I wouldn't say a strutless design requires superior fabrics. Its so balanced, perhaps it has lesser requirements. I just launched the Boardridingmaui.com website and put in the first blog post about what I saw along the trailing edge of conventional kites. This was in a light wind situation, but I think a similar illustration is the flutter common at the trailing edge of conventional kites between the wingtip and first strut. A strutless design isn't locked up in that way, and doesn't have any point loading of forces. And, no, it does not need higher LE pressure. Prior to development, I didn't know what I'd find, so probably had the same question. I guess the worry could be that the canopy is unstable and puts some weird forces on the LE. But, this has been found not to be the case. The canopy is totally stable, and its light weight probably requires less rigidity from the LE (assuming the arch and bridle are properly designed). Having said all this, I can't really say how it would work with lessor materials as I never tried. I went with the industry-leading factory, using proven materials they developed in-house specifically for the kiteboarding industry.

Thanks for all the questions and comments. BEST WISHES TO ALL FOR THE KICK OFF OF A NEW YEAR NEXT WEEK.

For anyone interested in getting on the waiting list for the first availability of boards in January and kites in February, please go to www.boardridingmaui.com and submit your request on the homepage.

Thank you to kiteforum.com for providing a place where I could share updates while the gear was in pre-production development.

Re: Strutless kite in development on Maui

Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2012 11:31 pm
by tautologies
Paipo!!!! YAY!!! :D

Re: Strutless kite in development on Maui

Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 12:19 am
by dafish
Paipo! Indeed. Old school can be so much fun. I just finished shaping an Alaia board for lightwind days. This board is so much fun and actually handles the chop quite well which surprised me a bit.
As far as those kites go, I just love the simplicity of the design, (though I doubt there is nothing simple in the math behind the science) and I can't wait to see them in action.

Re: Strutless kite in development on Maui

Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 9:19 am
by WildDuke
boardriding maui wrote:
For anyone interested in getting on the waiting list for the first availability of boards in January and kites in February, please go to www.boardridingmaui.com and submit your request on the homepage.
I couldn't see a place to register interest? Im interested in prices and possibility to post to Australia. I love supporting new innovators!

Re: Strutless kite in development on Maui

Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 10:13 am
by Westozzy
Hey any chance of getting some footage of some crew really lit on this kite, in waves and boosting. That is something I'd like to see. How it performs under load by a rider or two pushing the canopy to see how it responds. Genuinely interested in this development. Well done.

Re: Strutless kite in development on Maui

Posted: Sat Dec 29, 2012 2:37 pm
by Coloradokiter
Hi, interested in a board but could not find where to register on your webpage.

thanks, Joel

Re: Strutless kite in development on Maui

Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2012 12:18 am
by Europ2
Congrats for the nice job :thumb: I'm looking forward to read the tests of production kites in a few weeks.

With foilboard use in mind in marginal wind conditions, ... I am very interested in the ultralight wind behaviour and water relaunch of the Cloud big sizes.
As a strutless kite it should be much lighter than kites of equivalent surfaces (less dacron and TPU) which should bring a better low end.
Therefore I would welcome a table indicating the kite windrange and weight ... for a 75kg rider on a classic 135x40 cm twintip, something like this in fact...
Surf weight.jpg
Surf weight.jpg (41.5 KiB) Viewed 3120 times

Re: Strutless kite in development on Maui

Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2012 2:47 am
by tautologies
Europ2 wrote: With foilboard use in mind in marginal wind conditions, ... I am very interested in the ultralight wind behaviour and water relaunch of the Cloud big sizes.
As a strutless kite it should be much lighter than kites of equivalent surfaces (less dacron and TPU) which should bring a better low end.
Yes this is definitely a good point. Light wind potential is good for sure. There are many things I think a lighter weight kite can be good at. Drift on a wave for instance?