Leading Edge Leaks 1/2 Air After Crash??

[GregWoj]

Hi Guys - Had an interesting problem this past week with my Cabrinha Vectors 11m & 14m. Happened twice on the 11m in one day and once on 14m.

Kite pumps up just fine on the beach - holds air - flies nice and fun. When it crashes and tries to flip into relaunch position it somehow loses 1/2 the air in the LE. This causes it to not flag properly and just flop around. Not good as I had a 45 min drift back to the beach one session. Struts locked off so I know its the LE only. I double checked the inflate valve for sand/debris and the quality of the O rings - It looks fine.

Anyone else have this problem with Cabrinha kites? Any other potential causes?

[Konza]

Check if your onepump valves on the LE are brittle. In that case heavy twisting of the strut/LE connection like when relaunching leads to air leaking through. There are actually quite a few brand out there that had this problem in the past or still have it.

[jats2k9]

How hard did you crash the kite against the water? I had this happened once on a brand new kite. Because the kite was new, I didn't tight the valve cap just enough afraid of messing up the thread. Result, I tomahawked the kite and the cap poped up just enough to leak air out and lose presure.
It seems to me like you might not be tighting enough the caps since you had it happened on two kites. It would be such a coincidence for both kites to have the same problem, yet not impossible.

[GregWoj]

Looks like I found the possible cause. My dealer got back to me and told me this has happened before. I will pump up and inspect tomorrow and report back


http://new.ikitesurf.com/forums/viewtop ... 978#p87457

[GregWoj]

Ok so after some testing and inspection I found out that the connection points between the LE and strut on the main strut was slipping off. This was causing the air leakage on a tomahawk crash. I also noticed that the rubber hose that connects the LE to the center strut is about 1 inch too short - what that means is when the kite crashes and gets flipped around in the surf, the movement of the LE to Main strut causes that rubber hose to expand, and if 1 inch longer it probably would of held, but since it was a bit short, the plastic caps didn't hold it in place on either end and there in lies the issue.

So to fix this, I removed the cheap plastic caps all together and replaced them with metal clamps. A zip tie works fine too, for me the rubber hose was too short for zip ties thus the metal clamp had a more snug connection when stretching. Will use zip ties once I get the replacement tubing from my dealer to make it the correct size. I put a wrap of heavy duty water proof rubber tape under the clamp to prevent the metal from possibly ripping the rubber hose. I also didn't screw it super tight. Just tight enough so the rubber hose does not slide when stretched. After applying the metal clamp, I wrapped it in another few wraps of the rubber tape, Then replaced the neoprene sleeve. I think this should protect any Dacron or sail material from contacting the metal in a washing machine incident again. Time will tell.

I pumped up and simulated tomahawk crash landing. LE retained air. Pretty easy and quick fix. I zip ties on the other two struts as they don't stretch as much as the LE / Center strut connection and were the correct length. The caps on those were weak was well so I took the proactive approach and just reinforced them with zip ties. (IN fact, the whole design is kind of weak IMO. My dealer told me all Cab kite made after Nov 2014 have a better design/stronger connection between the sprint valves and rubber tubing).

If you own a Cab kite, I highly recommend you inspect these connection points and reinforce them before you head out deep off shore into wave breaks. When that LE deflates or partially deflates it significantly reduces the kites ability to flag or flip over into relaunch position. Then it starts twisting/folding and can make the QR1 not operate. Not good when deep off shore as I learned.