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I was recently in Bahia Salinas Costa Rica and rode my 7.5 Naish Cult and newly acquired 2012 Blade Trigger. 2010 Naish bar for both.

As winds gusted and I had Cult depowered I moved to the smaller 7m Trigger.

Trigger would flutter and loose shape. Came in and pumped more air, slight improvement. Lines set to mid knot on kite.

Took Cult back out.

Q. Anyone can help me relate to this experience? None of my Naish kites ever done this when overpowered. Hopefully some Blade owners....??

Thanks for input,

Max

I had a 9m cult and it was quite stable with no flutter. Probably the Geo-tech panel layout. Haven't ridden a blade kite but some kites need a little more back line tension. Depower by edging the board, not pushing the bar out so that you keep tension in the lines.

flutter I would not worry too much about...losing shape can be very dangerous. If it deforms to the point of collapsing I would try to pump it super hard, or give up. If it just deforms to the point of bending slightly it might not be so bad.
It might be the the kite was just out of its windrange?

..but yeah the cult was gnarly high wind kite.

I owned a 2012 Trigger 7M and found it did as you described in those winds.
High wind kites with three struts are not a great way to go, in my opinion.
I had much better luck with my 2012 10M Trigger and my 2010 9M Trigger, but that was always in lesser winds. The middle sized Triggers are super fun kites, not as big a fan of the big ones and the small ones.
Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that the Trigger would be a better kite if they redesigned it with five struts, like the North Evo adopted after a couple years.
I found the five strut Blade Prime airframe more solid than Trigger.
Recently, I find myself more and more drawn to five strut C kites, just like in the good old days!

Madmax I take my Blades out in all conditions and suffer no flutter.. I think riding them on a Naish bar with probably a longer throw than Blade bar may allow you to over depower the kite which could cause flutter?
Brand swopping bars with lines equal length will work but will need trimming to take account of different throws/depower systems..

Had deformation problem always with underpumped kite. My Core XR2 is specially sensitive to that. Had to eject both times. At 11m, have to put 6,5 psi to be good. Core says its kites need something from 6 to 7 psi, and you should adjust by the size you have. Thus, a smaller kite will require more pressure and so the other way arround.

What I would do is to check the recommended pressure and use a pump with a manometer, in order to check the pressure before going to water. I used to trust "sound" check with my LF Envy, but can't with the XR2. Maybe this is the case with your Blade too.

Oh, and if you use some electric compressor, use it just to begin the pumping. Finish and mesure with the manual pump.

Good winds! Be safe!

got 2011 10m Trigger and 17m Fat Lady and they both deform once I push them within the upper end of the wind range

worst if it is a hot day as once they hit (the colder) water the air compresses/lose volume and I´m too lazy to stop the session and pump it again

agree with O&B - my 5 strut Prime is way more rigid. but then there are other trade offs, Trigger and Prime are really 2 different kites

think 2012 Triggers have a bar with a relatively high Y, as in 2011 models. Don´t know if the Naish bar would be the same and how much that would impact the rigidity of the frame, but I would check it.

Thanks guys I'll call Blade about fine-tuning the kite

I don't think over inflating was the issue

I'll have to wait till my next trip in to high winds to check out tuning lines

Max

It is not a kite tuning issue, it is not going to change by changing attachment points.
Pump the kite to 9 psi which is not over inflation.
If you shorten your bar throw, it may help a little, your Naish bar has longer throw and the Blade bars had a relatively short throw.
Keeping back line tension allows less flutter, so a shorter bar throw will help there.
But nothing will change the fact that three struts leaves a lot of unsupported canopy between them and that particular 7M kite has that tendency.

Sounds like a classic case of sigmaitus

Many riders around here would agree the Naish Sigma kites were crazy stable and had a huge range. It was hard to get them far enough outside their range to get them to actually start luffing.

What you're experiencing is normal for most kites when they get overpowered.

If you over inflate your kite that will help a bit but your kite may explode. If you mess with your lines you will lose some depower which could be dangerous if you're already overpowered to begin with.

The right solution is you should consider getting a smaller kite for those conditions and preferrably something with some rigidity (probably more then 3 struts, larger diameter leading edge too) rather then your typical lightweight low profile floppy delta.