Postby Mossy 757 » Tue Nov 10, 2015 2:53 pm
I was at the St. Pete regatta this weekend and got some good feedback from the top riders on which kites work best.
Here's what I figured out:
R1 - total garbage, collapses for like no reason and has a tendency to bowtie-twist when collapsing, guaranteeing a swim home. Nobody was riding one out of 27 competitors, and those who had experience with the kite felt comfortable talking trash openly. Most of these guys who have experience with Chronos love them and some still ride them as their primary race kite, just think Ozone struck out with the R1.
Joker 5 - Great kite when tuned, requires a lot of love to keep it flying nicely; everyone I talked to said their kite needed to be tuned right out of the bag, didn't come "ready to fly" from the factory. I have an old Joker 5 that I just picked up and felt really good with it, but it needs some love and there has clearly been a compromise between durability and light weight materials in favor of weight savings. Amazingly balanced bar pressure between front and rear lines, VERY different feeling than an LEI where all your power comes from pulling in the rear lines. A high-end toy for gear heads who enjoy tinkering.
Sonic FR - by far the heaviest out of the bag due to stronger materials, but arguably just as fast upwind as any other kite on the course. Bridles are significantly heavier weight than the Joker and F-One, about comparable to a Chrono but more organized and easier. From what I can tell, the Sonic is the most "beginner friendly" of the high aspect depower foils available for racing. It also has really clean adjustment points for tuning. Heavy bar pressure.
Diablo - Fastest kite, very light weight, flies great out of the bag without any futzing around. Talking to the top riders, they think it's about even with the Sonic upwind, but has a slight edge downwind because it creates more straight line grunt towards the leeward mark. Folks were saying the kite has lots of front line pressure and very light bar pressure.
Recommendations:
Total newbie to foil kites - Sonic
Experienced with foil kites looking to win races - Diablo
Land-base rider (snow/buggy) who can easily walk downwind and unfu*ck a twisted (overpriced) kite - R1
Fluent Russian speaker who wants to tinker with their gear all the time - Joker5
Nobody had a Joker 6, so some of the problems I highlighted with the 5 may be remedied in the new kite.