Postby s1buell_wl » Wed Jun 04, 2014 8:39 pm
BWD
As you wish man. I can tell you the 2013 edge is a delicate kite. I've had many other brands and like a ton. I've never had a kite last more then 2ys we just kite to much here.
Again I'm not trying to convince anyone of anything just sharing my personal experience with the 2013 edge.
It's great they have moved to the 2x ripstop.
You want a good laugh???? Read the entire response they tell me you need to baby an Edge because its delicate..... too funny
From Rep & Ozone
I know this really sucks. It sickens me that you have only had this kite a short while and this has happened! The reason the stitching lines up with the holes is because the canopy was scraped while it was mashed in to those stitches. This is evident by the scratches… not the wear marks and holes, but all the scratching on the outside (opposite side of canopy that is touching the stitches) which is running diagonally across most the area beyond those stitches in your pictures. And this points to the type of scraping that can be done while flipping a kite… either during a self launch or when flipping by hand, etc. Or, if the kite is left on the beach to flap in the wind, this can also happen as the wind pushes the canopy down on to those stitches. When flying, the canopy is pushed outwards so this isn’t an issue then. In an attempt to further illustrate what I am trying to explain… If you took a piece of paper, put it over those stitches on the leading edge and scrubbed a credit card over the paper, you would wear the paper through to those stitches. But the stitches aren’t the cause of the wear, it’s the scraping of the credit card.
You have to remember that the Edge is a purpose built race kite. It is designed to be light, quick and does not have the extra reinforcement used on the majority of general purpose sort kites like the North. With the Edge, Ozone has made use of lighter weight Dacron, ESPECIALLY on that big 19M. Ozone makes the Catalyst with heavier Dacron, etc, so it can better handle this type of wear & tear. But it’s these light, performance characteristics of the Edge that also make it a great light wind kite. However, YOU HAVE TO BABY A KITE LIKE THIS as it is not made to handle abuse. You probably shouldn’t self launch a delicate monster. Doing so requires scraping the kite along sand when turning it over. On a big kite like you own, self launching is going to wear even heavier on the canopy due to the extra weight. Or, when you anchor your chicken loop on a self launch/land, you have to make sure the kite is not bouncing off the sand on the wingtip. Even if you have guys launching and landing your kite, you have to be careful they are not mashing it into the sand when flipping it over. And people are more likely to do this when assisting you with a huge monster like your 19M. If you’re on an ocean, chances are your beach sand is nothing more than crushed shells which can be very rough and sharp. When having someone assist a launch, have them pick up the kite, let the wind hover it and walk their hands down the leading edge as they are turning it over so the kite is not touching the ground when flipping it for you. And while we’re at it, you cannot pump a big kite like this as solid as a smaller kite. About a 7 psi max is it. The volume of air in a 19M is huge. Too much air, you can burst a seam and it ain’t pretty on a kite this large… I have seen it happen!
I hate these types of situations. You have spent good money on this kite. But I’m not going to be able to get Ozone to cover this because it is not a warranty issue. The kite can be repaired of course. If we were to repair this kite properly, we would probably do panel replacements in the damaged areas. That would keep the kite as light as possible so it would perform as it was designed. But if you’re not racing it, perhaps you might consider having patches sewn over those areas as well as any others that might be susceptible with the type of wear this kite is seeing. Obviously with the former solution, you would have to change your approach to handling this kite. With the latter, you’d have some protection against some wear. Now I would be glad to cut you some slack on the repairs to help you out but not a whole lot is made on repairs so the amount saved isn’t going to mean much against the cost you would incur shipping the kite back and forth. Perhaps you have a good local sail repair shop who can handle either of the 2 suggested solutions correctly? If so, I would have to imagine the cost would be far less than a even discounted repair plus roundtrip shipping? Let me know. I’m glad to help any way I can.
Last edited by
s1buell_wl on Wed Jun 04, 2014 8:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
