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Best lightwind board

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grigorib
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Local Beach: OBX; Clinton Lake, IL; Lake Michigan; Hood River; La Ventana; Ocean Park, PR; SPI; Tawas, MI
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Boards: Spleene RIP 37, Flysurfer Radical6 138, Flysurfer Flydoor5 XL, Slingshot/Moses/RDB 70/90/101cm masts with 1200/860/800/730/600 kitefoil or 2200/1700/1400 wingfoil wings and 310/230/425 stabilizers, Naish MicroChip 80cm, 36" Woody, Slingshot Dwarfcraft Micro 100, MBS Comp 95x

For sale: Slingshot Turbine 9/13m, 20” Guardian bar, 1700 sq.cm wing/fuselage/stabilizer fitting Moses mast
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Re: Best lightwind board

Postby grigorib » Sun May 06, 2018 7:58 pm

Pedro Marcos wrote:
Sun May 06, 2018 7:16 pm
100kg ? 19m or 21 foil kite :)
I’ve seen 220 lbs guy (100 kg) foiling under 10/12/14m LEI kites just fine. All on a pocket board and regular freeride wings (hoverglide)

Anything starting above 15m is slow to turn and inefficient to loop. For 120 kg you might need a 15m to foil but below that 12m should be just fine

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Pedro Marcos
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Re: Best lightwind board

Postby Pedro Marcos » Sun May 06, 2018 11:16 pm

grigorib wrote:
Sun May 06, 2018 7:58 pm
Pedro Marcos wrote:
Sun May 06, 2018 7:16 pm
100kg ? 19m or 21 foil kite :)
I’ve seen 220 lbs guy (100 kg) foiling under 10/12/14m LEI kites just fine. All on a pocket board and regular freeride wings (hoverglide)

Anything starting above 15m is slow to turn and inefficient to loop. For 120 kg you might need a 15m to foil but below that 12m should be just fine
What is lightwinds for you? For me its 5-7 knots

grigorib
Very Frequent Poster
Posts: 4147
Joined: Mon Aug 01, 2016 8:12 pm
Kiting since: 2009
Local Beach: OBX; Clinton Lake, IL; Lake Michigan; Hood River; La Ventana; Ocean Park, PR; SPI; Tawas, MI
Gear: Kites: Slingshot Rally 5/7/9/11m, Turbine 9/13m, SST 4/5m, UFO 3/5/7/9m, Flysurfer Speed4 10m standard, Flysurfer 2cool 6m, Peter Lynn Venom II ARC 16m

Boards: Spleene RIP 37, Flysurfer Radical6 138, Flysurfer Flydoor5 XL, Slingshot/Moses/RDB 70/90/101cm masts with 1200/860/800/730/600 kitefoil or 2200/1700/1400 wingfoil wings and 310/230/425 stabilizers, Naish MicroChip 80cm, 36" Woody, Slingshot Dwarfcraft Micro 100, MBS Comp 95x

For sale: Slingshot Turbine 9/13m, 20” Guardian bar, 1700 sq.cm wing/fuselage/stabilizer fitting Moses mast
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Re: Best lightwind board

Postby grigorib » Mon May 07, 2018 1:12 am

Pedro Marcos wrote:
Sun May 06, 2018 11:16 pm
grigorib wrote:
Sun May 06, 2018 7:58 pm
Pedro Marcos wrote:
Sun May 06, 2018 7:16 pm
100kg ? 19m or 21 foil kite :)
I’ve seen 220 lbs guy (100 kg) foiling under 10/12/14m LEI kites just fine. All on a pocket board and regular freeride wings (hoverglide)

Anything starting above 15m is slow to turn and inefficient to loop. For 120 kg you might need a 15m to foil but below that 12m should be just fine
What is lightwinds for you? For me its 5-7 knots
7 or so. I try to ride cautiously, I don’t like swim-ins. LEIs fly 7 aright so I can ride. I tend to rig long lines for lightwind and whenever I feel I’m going to need a 15m kite I know it’ll not be a fun session.

I admire folks being able to ride 5 knots or 45 knots but I don’t justify buying gear to ride that kind of winds. Not that I can’t but I choose not to. Regardless I’m often the first one or the only one riding and that does it for me :)

I went from 19m through 16m through my 15m for my lightwind kites and I’m never going back to larger sizes. Again, I’d pay a rental for 15m Sonic to have a session but I’d rather cook a breakfast for the crew and get my riding other time.

Few weeks ago I rode my 11m Rally on 37m lines on friend’s Hoverglide and folks around were struggling to ride their 19m Contras with their “undersized” 160cm doors and I could only shake my head....
Big kites are the past

Foils are beautiful to look at, they’re my love at first sight and I’d demo one anytime but things like challenging drift launcheability and bridle equalizing make them high maintenance. Love foils but I prefer to watch them rather than own them...

And I could squeeze more power, more agility for my 2012 Rally 10m than from my 10m Speed4. I could squeeze more lowend from 17m XR than from my 19m Speed3 Deluxe. These kind of experience are sobering

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Pedro Marcos
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Re: Best lightwind board

Postby Pedro Marcos » Mon May 07, 2018 9:17 am

I love every session of my 17m R1V2, in race gear, to kite in a flat sea its something special and that not many do.

Back to the 100kg guy, he wont be able to kite in 7 knots with any LEI, maybe with 9 knots, thats why i recomended the big foil kite, and with a 19m/21m he basicaly can be in any board he wants.

joriws
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Re: Best lightwind board

Postby joriws » Mon May 07, 2018 11:30 am

Pedro Marcos wrote:
Mon May 07, 2018 9:17 am
Back to the 100kg guy, he wont be able to kite in 7 knots with any LEI, maybe with 9 knots, thats why i recomended the big foil kite, and with a 19m/21m he basicaly can be in any board he wants.
I've different opinion on "big foil kite, >19m2". For *freeriding* a big guy like me (110kg), I don't need above 15m2 with Flydoor-twintip (or my foil board). I've had 21m Speed3 but difference to 15m2 Speed3DLX was very minor on low end because 15m2 was easier to fly to generate required power where 21m you were struggling with turn radius and flying actively on low end. With 15m2 Sonic2+flydoor my low end is so low that when I cannot plane (plane at least downwind back to beach) the wind is so powerless that kite does not want to climb to zenith. And we have ridden multi-rider (kiters started career at 2002-3 etc) tests with Speed3 15-21 and Sonic-FR 15-18 face-to-face or kite-to-kite and in our typical ULW (ultra low wind, single digit winds in knots) conditions. Everyone always selected 15m2 because they generate indentical "power level" (== force impulse to get on top of board and accelerate to plane), have higher high end and are more fun to fly.

If you don't take my word, you can check this video where my 110kg with previous generation Speed4 15 lotus leaves 17m Turbines and other LW LEIs to shame because they can purely fly and all steering input kite takes is against heavy leading edge but not climb towards zenith, proving very low wind. I just put a link - not embed video, because I've used the video so many times @KF on different topics. Below my riding wind it would not help add more square meters to kite. At video's *trick* "backroll transition with kite loop" you can really see how low the truewind was. How sluggish the kite already was but I was still riding. With unfamiliar board I needed to take walk upwind couple of time to get away from guys kites flying because they blocked me. But I wanted to ride close to them to show them that there is enough wind where their kites are to ride so that they cannot say forest blocked the wind like it does. So I went between two kites, stopped and dived the kite.. A little show-off I admit..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CxSGhN4iPc

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Pedro Marcos
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Re: Best lightwind board

Postby Pedro Marcos » Mon May 07, 2018 12:47 pm

It really depends on how light you want to go, i weight 77kg and there is a big difference between being on a 15m foil kite or a 17m foil kite, so i can only imagine that being 110kg the diference will be even bigger. Im talking about wind that you cannot go with a Twintip.


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