Pedro Marcos wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2018 11:19 pm
Peter_Frank wrote: ↑Mon Feb 12, 2018 10:47 pm
Hi Pedro - not sure I understand your question here ?
You have loads of experience with everything, so assume you have ridden your small wavekites in this wind, or ?
From 18 knots I, average weight, ride a 5 m2 LEI wavekite, sometimes a 6 if only 16-18 but then quickly too powered, even on my smallest wing.
Around 22 knots the 5 is still just possible to ride, but on the upper end and not sweetspot anymore, and for riding waves, NOT good, again not sure if you want freestyle/waves or speed.
But I assume you know this, thus not sure about your question, or it is about small foilkites and not LEIs at all maybe ?
PF
Actually my smallest wavekite is a 6m LEI, and im too powered on that on 18+ knots, so i need a smaller kite, i really want to have the "underpowered" feel in this conditions, so im not sure if a 5m LEI will do the job, maybe a foil kite having alot more deepower will be better? Ive never tried small foil kites and i just imagine how messy it can be in high winds with all the bridles and stuff.
I also tried my 6m LEI with shorter lines, but it doesnt work, or at least it doesnt work as good as it works on the foils kites, i get lots of short power spikes on the LEIs which is quite annoying.
Im looking just for Freestyle/waveride on the hidrofoil in this winds, i feel that "race setup" its pointless in this winds, unless i decide to enter some national competitions, which i wont until i get 10/10 on tacks and gybes and i bet that will take at least 1 more year.
Aaah, okay, then we are on the very same tune here Pedro
Precisely as you have experienced, a 6 m2 is overpowered when reaching 18 knots and up...
And using shorter lines, you get this YUK YUK on off feeling and powerspikes - I hate this too thus use 25 m lines on my small kites, to avoid this...
You are right, a 5 m2 will work from 18 knots but only up to around 22, then it starts getting overpowered quite fast
So a quite narrow "sweet" wind range, you are spot on.
Of course one can easily ride in much more wind with a 5 - but that was not the goal, your goal (as well as mine) was to be able to ride pleasantly powered.
I got a 3.5 m2, but it needs around 23 knots and more, so not really any overlap, the gap is quite big in fact (43 % difference in size is too much...)
Now I understand your question about other kite types too, like small foil kites.
From 18 to 23 knots there is 63 % more power in the wind, so hard, probably impossible, to find one kite that covers this pleasantly.
Having said that, it is amazing how much windrange a small kite got when we hydrofoil - but when talking numbers (average wind), not so much range really
PF