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AndrewJMcGee wrote: The kite lands leading faceing you, then catches some air and rolls front to back. Now the 5th is wrapped around the middle of the kite and it is nearly imposible to relaunch without shredding the kite. Pretty much that is the end of the session till you get back to the beach. If you never have had it happen more power to you. It can happen and will happen.
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I have had that happen to me dozens of times.
Usually its easy to sort out, you just release the kite to the 5th line und then pull in one stearing line a few meters. The kite will stretch itsself flat on the water and the 5th line slips around a tip.

re: 5th line wraps. If you spot the kite rolling then release the chicken loop, let it roll over then reload and relaunch. The 5th line will be twisted round one of the back lines but the kite should still be flyable back to shore. When I crash my rebel I'm always ready to pull the release if necessary - only had to do it once. It's not a perfect system by any means but I like the 5th for self landing and its definitely the safest option.

havent tried the evo on 4 yet - can't be hard to convert the 5th element bar to the 4 line setup surely? Just disconnect the upper 5th line and connect the red section to the bottom of the Y?

Thats exactly how it happens. I went about 9 months with no wrap-ups, then had 2 yeterday. After drifting back in from the second one, I was considering ending my long relationship with Rebels and 5th lines. I thought maybe I should have released to the 5th as soon as I saw it falling, but I'm not sure that would have helped. Its such a pain to relaunch after releasing too.

Two things make me hesitate to say goodbye to them though - Can I solo land an Evo, even in a strong wind and with no anchors?

And once released to the safety, will the kite reliably have little enough pull for me to pull myself into the kite along the line, through the water? (No I'm not a fan of winding all the lines onto the bar in a self rescue)

Hey Foxi, How is the Bandit/ids bridle different from the Evo ? Does it fly better, depower better, what ? Could you copy it, yourself, to improve the Evo ?

Don Lester wrote:Hey Foxi, How is the Bandit/ids bridle different from the Evo ? Does it fly better, depower better, what ? Could you copy it, yourself, to improve the Evo ?

the bandit bridle utilises a patent protected free floating pulley at the pigtail connection of its deep V-bridles. Once safety is deployed, the pulley travels towards the middle axle of the kite and allows it to roll on its back and fully depower without rest pull. Same with IDS, IMHO a copy of the original F-One idea, don´t know if they pay licence fees.
As this concept doesn´t avoid the kite to fly back up on its back, North states to prefer the stable parking position at the edge of the wind window instead. Of course a serious argument in waves where seconds count. With known problems in sub-relaunch-conditions due to restpull making yur homeswim a pain and hard to self land in steady winds without fixed anchor available.

But in planing conditions extremely simple and reliable system, I didn´t have any relaunch issues after crashes in planing conditions since I left 5th line concept back 1.5 years.

bit early to be talking about 2010 kites isnt it?!

i have a 9m evo from 2008 which has some problems - backstalling in gusts being the main one. but when the wind its good, its fantastic even with the problems im still considering a full quiver later this year when the 2010 come out. ive read that all the problems with 2008 evos were fixed in the 2009 so im expecting the 2010's to be the dogs bollox.

What the hells a " dogs bollox" ?

Don Lester wrote:What the hells a " dogs bollox" ?

it means good.

btw. the bandit bridle seems very long to me.

Dog's bollocks, bee's knees, cat's whiskers = the best thing since sliced bread.

Not sure about the Evo safety system. I was out with my 2008 15m and it is useless to release to selfland when the kite is downwind LE down. It will never flip on its back. If you pull on the mini fifth, then it rolls on a tip to go to the edge of the window or relaunch alone who knows? The best way is to release with the kite at 30 or 45 degrees let it rest then pull on the front line it will end up LE facing you then you can real it in really easily. But, if you drop your kite downwind LE down and it drags you and you release... Good luck your going to drink a massive amount of water... I recently started to fly my Evo on the 5th element bar and it is brilliant for landing... the kite just drops on its back... I think the rhino 09 in 4 line mode can flip on its back no? I think the Evo should be tunable in a way that you can do that. By the way I have seen Bandit Dos relaunching as the kite was being reeled it... not on its back à la Rebel but with power. pretty scary sight.