I've been looking since several months for the ideal lightweight LEI to complement my foil kites that could be used for waveriding as well as for foiling.
I was given to try (pre-?) production Airush Ultra 9 and 15, and I believe my search has ended. I was over the moon. Although I hadn't been riding LEI for years, I dialled in with minutes. Fast turning on a dime (my reason for getting a LEI) and the 15 light enough to get going in 7 knots with a hydrofoil. Not going quite well upwind as the Speed5 8 and Sonic2 13, but that was expected. The downwind bit made up for it.
I was considering the following candidates:
- North Mono
- Liquid Force Solo
- Airush Lithium Zero (first to be eliminated!)
- Airush One (which has little to do with the Ultra, considering the feed-back I got - to be confirmed!)
- F One Breeze (tried the 11 - too much flapping).
- Naish Trip
- BRM Cloud, of course
- Storm Voyager 2
- Gong Strutless
I didn't have the chance to weigh them yet, in order to update the following charts (the most interesting info in the first one, is the weight/projected area adjusted to 10 m equivalent) and confirm they are lighter than the Airush One:
I cannot remember the name of the person I must thank for the following spreadsheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0
PS I haven't tried many of the kites on my list, but had to limit my choice to the ones available in my region.
PS2 Title edited to use PMU's favorite expression for foil kites riders.