What influences going upwind

[Matteo V]

Tuttle/full Tuttle.

Yes, no such thing as a "Full Tuttle". Thanks for correcting your statement.

You mooching around with minis indicates you stopped with boards in 2012 at the latest certainly if you continued the data you gathered from your ‘testing’ was at a severe disadvantage compared to anyone using 70 wide boards with 40 cm fins and evaluating the same kites

North (now Duotone) was dumping raceboards 2012-2013 and you could score one for $200 US complete with fins. Some of us found the fins to be a bit much to have any fun with on race boards or large builds, so some were brave enough to cut those finsets down. Others like me, made adapters (actually found someone selling them after I made mine) and were using/making Mini Tuttle fins. They were cheap and available used on ebay, and for a time Slingshot even was closing out smaller sets (but they had too much cant). So you could experiment quite a bit without the work.

Don't get me wrong, the 40cm-ish fins were OK for mowing the lawn in reasonable chop. But dropping the fin size increased the speed and thus the apparent wind while still giving excellent upwind capabilities with the size of the raceboard providing a high plane at low speeds. Jumping those boards was also fun as no one else could get up to speed to jump in those light winds. And landings were no fun with larger fins, so jumping also necessitated reducing fin sizes.

As for mini supporting 30 cm fins? Not a hope. Hence the change to Tuttle as they were breaking out of the boards and even recreational boards like the Airush sector that speced fins well under 30 cm remained with Tuttle boxes not minis

I made and used 32cm minis. I know that was at the edge, but it tested out without breaking the box, adapter, or fins. Later, 25cm both in quad and 3-fin seemed to be the "fun" limit. All the while I was getting closer to a "Sector" like platform, but I just didn't really wind up there. At the end of this, I went way down in size in fins as I was moving towards something I could ride in shallow. But that's a different story.

Oh and deep Tuttle supports up to 1m in length so don’t sell it short;-)

Yeah, that's what we used on windsurf formula boards. I never "sold it short". Just no need for that box in kiting until hydrofoiling came out.




Now, we are pretty far off in the weeds from the OP's ideas. Anything on topic on that to add? Still against my ideas that full on race kites are junk for 99% of kiting? Remember the Chrono V2 vs the R1 thing and how in real world applications, the Chrono V2 out performs the R1? Basically, this lays out that maximum upwind performance gear can "trade off" some freeride comfort and control, and reduce freestyle/wave capabilities. Given that the OP is not indicating a focus on course racing, I think that this race gear stuff you've goaded me into discussing is pretty irrelevant - don't you?