Sorry for the delay it was delivered to me while I was out of the country....
So far I have only been able to use it at my house (have not tried undoing a line salad yet)
1st thing I tested was if it floated...and it does!
Its design and construction is simple and efficient...my only concern is the rubber cods holding the two half's together...with time they will fail...Robin any estimate in the life of those cords?.... not sure if maybe a rectangular cross section, or maybe even a rectangular cross section with a cylinder stub on it would have a longer life (the cylindrical stub for ease of insertion and pulling into place thought he body of the lobster)…cost vs life of each…
Also the Velcro strap...a strap with both make and female on both sides of the strap would make it so that you could wrap it in either direction (for lefty and righty's), only downside would be having the exposed male Velcro part that could potentially cling onto other things in its surroundings (like when in a gear bag)….
(Ideally if you always use the lobster you really only should have to connect the lobster at the bar and walk out the lines once, so in theory its not repeated a lot so it does not really matter, not to mention the "problem" described below is very insignificant and solved by a simple twist, but anyways...)
When 1st rigging the lobster at the bar to walk out the lines... I would hold it in my left hand, rotating the top half counter clockwise to open, this leaves the groves where you insert the lines on the bottom, insert the lines close it and then would have the rubber button on top..... The friction caused on the lines from the weight of the rubber stopper block is very little but its there when you pull the lines though the lobster.... I figure that if you have the groves where the lines fit into on the half of the lobster that has the stopper block when you are done inserting the lines and walk out the lines the lobster is already set up in your hand with rubber block on the bottom and you get no drag....very insignificant and all you have to do is flip it around so the block is on the bottom while you walk them out with the current design, and then you have to flip it back around to have the left lines on the left, two of my lines are red and two are gray (2006 Waroo bar) so I can twist al I want and I know what side has to go to what side of the kite…. but I cant think of any downside to switching the half of the lobster that the groves are in..... am I missing something from the design perspective on why not to switch it? Regardless 1 out of 100 people would give it though that they are twisting the lobster to reduce drag…
(line sets where the lines are all white…the loops at the ends are color coded right?)
Like I mentioned I have not used it on the beach just at my house so I have not done a drift/boat launch but I was thinking.... if you have the lines wound up on the bar with the lobster on...you connect the lines to the kite, place the like in the water and let the kite float away with the wind as you unwind the lines you hold the bar in one hand and the lobster in the other using the rubber block to control kite.... if the kite gets “filled with airâ€Â