Hi everybody,
back from a nice kiting session including a very short try of the Advance/North Ace. The following is not a final test report, as too short impression, but a first note of thoughts.
Two friends tried the 17,5 m² and me the 11,5 m² all on twin tips around 10-15 knts. Before testing we had a short look on the kite and removed the line elongations, so just on 18 m lines + bridle, which may have caused some impressions as normally I use 24 m. First conclusion of all three pretty experienced soft kiter was similar. The following is what I remember:
Apart from the cloth which looked thinner (not measured the weight and light wind performance) some construction details looked similar to the Ozone Chrono v1. Especially the complete bridle and mixer is pretty similar from the material, on some points a bit more love to details as extra cover on some bridle line ends, but a very similar if not the same thin and gray material, which was rightly exchanged by Ozone after the first models by the same but colored material as the grey one is nearly invisible on most grounds, hope North will do the same. And also like Ozone (and a very bit also flysurfer) there are some unnecessary tangling points especially on the line connectors.
Didn't look in the inside but just on the drainage and unfavorable it is thin like on the ozone kites (flysurfer fits three fingers, and still two on the small sonics, Chrono and Ace fits one, one small finger). I launched the kite first time assembling in the water and it works pretty good at around 12 knts. The kite didn't absorb to much water so the drainage didn't have to do to much. Also relaunched it reward and also worked good. At this point and also many others the kite tended to roll in the ears pretty early also when flying and if you don't care it maybe don't stop but the hole kite can collapse beginning with one ear. Normally riding a foil kite you would sheet in or oversheet to prevent this behavior, but high (not too high) holding forces are making this possibility more difficult.
The bar has a tiny loop, so the overall loop length should be around 19 cm so similar to what flysurfer actually uses. Didn't like the always swinging end of the 1:4 trimmer setup (which constructions length seemed to be mixed up a bit) but on the end actually nearly every brand starts to use this strange setup, who knows why.
The power/m² feels pretty good and also the very view jumps I did felt nice. The turning radius felt a bit wider but one reason for that impression may have been the shorter lines. On the other hand there is that high Y which is, as said before not so good for a good turning soft kite. Therefore the feel for the turning is not so super direct but for the power it is, due to the a bit higher forces, think higher than chrono v1. Upwind didn't feel close to sonic or chrono but I was on a twintip and if you normally ride foilboards ... you know
So far, my first very short thoughts, think a kite anybody how wants to elongate, especially his north quiver with a high Y bar, to low wind, can buy, but should have some experience with foil kites as for sure not the easiest one, felt more unstable with the short lines than the sonic, I used directly after.
@gwicke: indeed useful table
