Gear advice for light wind

[artificialname]

I'm 210 pounds and in light wind I'm flying an Ozone Edge 17m. On my twin tip I can't get out much lower than 12 knots. I have a surfboard but I am not very confident kiting on it. I'd like to purchase some equipment to help me get out in around 10 knots. What do you think I should purchase?

An 18m foil kite? (Pansh A15)
A large "door" twin tip?
Just keep practicing with the surfboard?

Something else?

[leeuwen]

Well, obviously a hydrofoil is the option that provides the best experience in those winds and can give endless opportunities. That being said it does require:
* deep enough water
* no seaweed
* it would be best if you can blindly steer your kite before getting into this
If you are on a budget but want to buy new look at the gong gear. For used gear be aware that lots of old hydrofoils are a pain to learn on so do your research. Also you probably want a smaller kite with less struts. The heavy 5 struts tend to be bad below 12 knots especially for foiling. Also a crash means a swim because that huge high aspect 5 strut will probably not relaunch.

Most other options you mentioned might get you out in 10 knots BUT with barely enough power to ride it will probably get old quickly. Maybe not an issue if you plan to go out in these conditions 5 times a year but if you want to go out often it will get boring.

[sflinux]

Is it the lack of straps that you are not comfortable on the surfboard? Just give it some time, it just takes practice. Try to keep your front foot on the center line of the board. How wide is your surfboard? The wider it is, the easier it is to jibe. A fish is a pretty efficient shape. If your surfboard is a thruster, try riding it as a twinfin, less drag.
Alternate crafts: hydrofoil (highly recommended: best bang for your buck, don't go too small). longboard (twinfin recommended over 2+1 or single fin), SUP (twinfin recommended), alaia (so fun), raceboard, XL twintip, skimboard (don't get one too small), wakeskate.

[1234567Simon]

I am 70kg. So no real Help!
You are 95kg.

Depending on how good you are:

What Size twintip Board are you using?
If it is smaller than 44 wide then I would try a bigger Board for the First step.

Pansh A15 18m could be an Option, but the 17edge is pretty powerfull already.

What Surfboard do you have? Some Surfboards need a Lot more Wind than a large Twin tip.


And my Experience:
12knots is Not a Lot of Wind for 95kg. But with a large Twin Tip and your 17edge IT should Work..... If you are Experienced Rider....



Just my Experience:

8 knots.... My Tube Kites are Not really Staying Up.
10knots.... 12meter tube in small twintip not working
12 knots.... 17meter Tube Kite working with small Board
12 knots ..... 12meter Tube Kite working with 155x46 TT

[Pump me up]

The *best* light wind setup for you would be a massive kite (e.g., 19 m Edge) and a large, buoyant surfboard, e.g, a 7-8 ft mini mal. Despite the propaganda from ram lovers and hydrofoil lovers, this sort of setup will get you going marginally earlier than anything else.

Whatever you do, please don't buy a ram air (foil) kite. They are aerodynamically inferior compared to inflatables and *NOT SAFE* in ultra-light winds.

Pumpy ........

[PullStrings]

I'd suggest a LW specific twin tip first instead of a larger kite just for now ( more economical option )
Later maybe you can add a larger kite to squeeze more out of the wind
Depends on your budget and the desire to ride in 10 kn and have fun

Few examples to look at with widths over 46cm

Duotone
153x46.5 or 165x47.5

Core
159x47

Ozone
148x48

Same goes with surfboards for LW
They need width / flat rocker and Quad fin set-up
And extra volume for your fresh water conditions

Firewire biggest boards ( not available right now ) as examples
Baked Potato
6'4" x 23 1/8 in x 3 1/4 in x 57.1 L
6'2" x 23 in x 3 1/16 in x 52.2 L
6'0 X 22 3/4 in x 3 in x 49L

Look also on their website at the Twice Baked ( not available either in large sizes )
It has an even wider tail for possibly more low end and earlier planing

Pully.......

[jyka]

If you want to go cheap and easy, like the previous poster said, buy a door like twintip lightwind board. Nowadays when people are just foiling you will find them cheap.
When the twiptip gets boring, switch to foiling

[Boston kiter]

Buy a used foil.....TTing in less than 15KNTs gets old fast. Massive kites are slow and dull to fly. Been there done that.

[SENDIT!]

I'm 210 pounds and in light wind I'm flying an Ozone Edge 17m. On my twin tip I can't get out much lower than 12 knots. I have a surfboard but I am not very confident kiting on it. I'd like to purchase some equipment to help me get out in around 10 knots. What do you think I should purchase?

An 18m foil kite? (Pansh A15)
A large "door" twin tip?
Just keep practicing with the surfboard?

Something else?

Disclaimer: I sell Litewave and lots of other goodies

artificialname,
You are trying to ride the threshold of kiting on anything other than a foil. Now, that said, I do think you can get down to about 10 knots on a purpose built lightwind TT. Better even than a surfboard. I live in a lightwind area and at 220 pies, a “pretty good” board will not do it. The Litewave Wing 165 is hands down the best I’ve ever used and why I own one personally. I can still fool around with little jumps, rolls, carves, etc..down to 10 knots. Below that…just not really possible for anyone our size (or pretty much anyone else, really). At this point for me, I tend to prefer my hydrofoil for anything less than about 14 knots. But, that’s MY personal preference. What I’d encourage you to do is to read some of these recommendations you’re getting here and add on…”for me.” I see it all the time where people say “riding any kite bigger than XXX, boards bigger than XXX, winds lighter than XXX are just no fun”. Maybe at 22 years, I haven’t been a kiteboarder long enough to lose the fun of these conditions. I don’t know.

One thing I find worth pointing out is that riding a foil is definitely not the same thing as riding a twin tip. That doesn’t mean better or worse…b/c that depends on your perspective and what you enjoy doing. So getting into foiling doesn’t really mean you get to go out kiting like you usually do, just in lighter wind and on a smaller kite. It means learning to ride a fundamentally different kind of way. And I find it SUPER fun…FOR ME. But it is a different kind of riding and I will probably always prefer a twin tip and the kind of kiting I do with that. But again…that’s what is fun FOR ME.

Enjoy your ride, brother, whatever it may be. Good luck on your hunt!

SENDIT!

PS Learning to foil added at LEAST 30% more sessions to my year. Food for thought.

[joriws]

Edge is not that good light wind kite (still 5 strut kite like it used to be?). By changing to 15m foilkite 26m lines and door board you probably can take 4-5kn away from your number 12kn, just by changing the kite would take 2-3kn at least.

Once at beach with poor lei guys (mostly 16-17m) trying to get kite properly flying and turn towards zenith against heavy leading edge, my 250lbs with Speed4 15m foilkite and lended Nobile door-tt was riding. There is a video at yt showing it if you don't take my word and another video with door aerial playing that low wind does not need to lawn moving or ploughing. On other sessions 19m cores or airush zeroes or 18m dynoes did not deliver but my set up did so it is stating that leis above 15m are waste of money and effort. Today I ride 5m peak-kite with foil when friends with 15-16m lei&tt don't bother so gap of light wind performance is enormous.

Only lei kite I've tested to deliver was 15m dlab aluula kite, but its price tag was 2x compared to sonic3 11m which delivered the same power in low wind hydrofoiling back2back swapping. Other leis would have hinderburged down and stayed down.

So if you want to maximize low wind with twintip you need to do multiple options. I know Pansh is dirt cheap but there is a reason for that like a dirt cheap car. Ozone and Flysurfer are known to perform, then Elf, Airwave, Pulsion too, but Pansh is a bit nah due to potential tuning issues and not good to keep your fireplace wood dry.

Then on tt fast board meaning usually less rocker is better like larger sizes too and usually doors are very little rocker. Back in the day North Spike was very fast board on my gps comparison and smaller than flydoors.

Then some technique adaptation like riding board more flat, where you need more tt-fins to ride against, best tt solution is a large center fin on tt (transformer boards or like flyboards flyrace). As spraying water to side is loss of power. And then flying kite fast in arcs instead of pivot turning is a technique adaptation tip to succeed.