TomW wrote: ↑Sun Apr 22, 2018 9:51 am
Yesterday it was 14-15 knots. Our normal 0,5 m chop and swell. It was a great session on my 9m Mono perfect power, sometimes a bit light.
I had put on the 550 after several sessions on the 590.
I gotta say the 550 wing is magic for me. I'm getting better at foiling, and I seem to be able to go slower and slower on it. It's nimbler than the 590, and the 590 has more lift causing me to breach more, so I find 590 is superior to 550 only in sub 12 knots or super flat water.
I'm wondering how 633 is in this respect.
One problem I have is that I have front foothook that probably is preventing me from shifting forward on the board, forcing me to bring back foot forward and subsequently have narrow and less stable stance.
Your thoughts on the 590 v the 550 wing are in the main the same as mine,
the 550 just feels so good and the 590, although its fast, feels a little numb, yes the stall speed is better but the lack of anything really special is noticeable, the lift is nothing special for me( now I have the 633) the 590 wing requires my footstraps to be positioned at least one hole back to help keep the ride height feeling correct, my 590 is now redundant.
The new kid on the block and the one that has given me a high level of excitement is my 633 wing combo, the downside compared to the 550 wing is firstly the outright speed, the 550 is very fast, the 633 is fast enough, and this fast enough quality of the 633 keeps the pace just right in so many areas, for example - toeside on rolling swell, the 550 can easily get out of control and send me on a scary death run, never once has this happened on the 633, it inspires big fat dollops of confidence, toeside upwind against sizeable swell has become exciting and fun instead of hard work and wipeouts.
Another difference has been the drop down in kite size, for example- today in gusty winds of 14-17mph around 12-14knts,my sailing buddy and myself decided to rig 6mtr kites, and he weighs over 25kg more than me, we both agreed that if we were sailing our Ttips we would be on our 12mtr kites, and another Moses rider on standard wings went out on a 10mtr.
on our 6mtr kites we were fully powered up once flying, and due to the massive punchy lift from the wing we were able to get flying on the first downloop or on the 2nd loop in a lull, what this enabled me to do was play around in the turns on the swell, often looping the kite twice to go round and then twice back to drive down the wave faces knowing the foil would not get out of control, only rewarding me with a controlled rush with each loop of what would be a kite size too small if the 550 wing was being used and then of course the extra speed and bigger kite would have made the experience more demanding and less enjoyable as I did not have to worry about being out of control, this feeling has to be experienced to understand the benefits to my learning curve, even my wife who watches me like a critical hawk, was full of praise today, It felt so good I am still buzzing.