Ram air first session damage

[nayy]

Hi all,

On the first session i damaged my brand new ram air kite ...
Fell from my foilboard with the kite low. It tip- stalled, the lines tangled and the kite fell into the water.
It refused to restart, Probably due to the tangles.
I was very close (70meter) to shore, swam towards The kite and then to shore ... Did this carefully not to entangle the lines or to pull on them...
Arrived at the shore i noticed a tear in the kite.
(See attached pictures)
Flew only 1 hour in 8-9knots no hard crashes, no bashing, almost no waves that day ...

The brand refuses guarantee !!!

I won’t name any brand names, But it’s one of the big brands.... very dissapointed ... They are not taking their customers seriously...

Luckily the shop gives good support and will do the repair at it’s own expense ...

Did any of you also damage this type of kites so easily ?

Nayy

[jatem]

Might be a good time to try a peak 4 while the HL is in the repair shop? Single skins can handle a lot more abuse, they are cheaper, more playful, and they won't fall in the water so easily.

[cwood]

One of the things you need to be very careful of..... pulling a foil kite onto shore when it is a bag of water. The weight is deceiving and significant and puts tremendous strain on seams. Not saying this is the case but a manufacturer has no way of knowing what actually happened....they do know their computer based cutting and manufacturing tolerances and frequency and appearance of certain types of issues....and probably make their call based on that large data set. We have huge numbers of sessions on that brand....and in free ride situations these things eventually happen. Unfortunate that it was on your first ride! Foils bring many wonderful benefits but they are a bit Ferrari like from a care and maintenance perspective. Goes with the territory.

[sarc]

Well it's an easy repair and the kite should look and fly like new. The repair will not weaken the kite at all if done well. Can't blame the manufacturer for not providing a warranty after a crash, no matter how light. Maybe it's not the right type of kite for you?

[kitexpert]

Not that easy repair, unfortunately. I mean if done professionally, not making some hack fixes. If done properly there's no (greater) risk it will damage on that point again. Kite flying properties won't be affected.

[pmaggie]

One of the things you need to be very careful of..... pulling a foil kite onto shore when it is a bag of water. The weight is deceiving and significant and puts tremendous strain on seams.

This is for sure the reason of the damage. There are several videos about packing up a foil kite in deep water, if you're sure you can't relaunch your kite pack up and them swim back to the shore.

[joriws]

Can't blame the manufacturer for not providing a warranty after a crash, no matter how light.

Well we as a consumer can always buy from a manufacturer with 12 month free repair warranty.

But this kite can be professionally repaired by paraglider or parachute repair shop, if no kite repair shop nearby.

[sflinux]

I had to fix a foil that got damaged when the chicken loop line broke, followed by the leash, which let the kite drift into the surf, and got hit by waves on the wave in. Luckily yours is only 1 cell, mine was at least 4 (with rib damage too). You will need a seam ripper. Rinse and dry the kite. Open the trailing edge by popping the stitches. Pull the the inside of the cell so it is inside out. Pop all of the stitches of the ripped black portion. You could mend the ripped black portion with black sail tape. Sew the sail tape to the fabric. Use a clothes iron on a low heat setting for sail repair tape to fuse to fabric. Sew the kite back together, making sure to have the stitches line up with the existing holes. You may want to hand sew for everything to line up, then follow up with a machine to secure. When the repair is done, sew up the tailing edge. Don't double back your stitches, until the tailing edge is stretched out, you don't want for it to shrink.

[nayy]

..... pulling a foil kite onto shore when it is a bag of water. The weight is deceiving and significant and puts tremendous strain on seams. Not saying this is the case but a manufacturer has no way of knowing what actually happened....

Sure... but I did not do this ... did not pull the full kite on shore... I noticed the tear in the water when I arrived on shore... kite still in the water ...

[nayy]

Well it's an easy repair and the kite should look and fly like new. The repair will not weaken the kite at all if done well. Can't blame the manufacturer for not providing a warranty after a crash, no matter how light. Maybe it's not the right type of kite for you?

if this is normal, than 90% of the ram air kites would have that damage in the first 10 sessions...

the shop owner himself only had 1 same case, and that was from crashing the kite on the front really hard...