Would you replace this flying line?

[rnelias]

for freeride foiling, no

I suppose it depends on how far from home base you ride and how pleasant the swim would be.

I find as soon as I’m thinking something has 10 more sessions left then it breaks right away, and I’m think just that about this line.

If you believe in Murfy's law, so, yes... It's better to replace the line but, as other folks said, it depends on a bunch of factors and foiling is the lightest possible load for a kite line. Moreover, if you're far away from shore and a line breaks, I'm sure you'll try to splice them again using any knot to come back without having to swin. That's what I would try

In fact, I had a friend that had exactly this situation foiling far from shore and had 2 lines breaking at the same time (*). He managed to splice both lines together using knots and came back to the beach foiling safely.

(*) The history is crazy and hard to explain but, here in my country, some child play with cheap kites, made with bamboo and paper, using lines with a cutting coat (I'm sure @Toby knows what I'm talking about), very dangerous btw... He got the bad luck to meet one of these kites, flying nowhere in the ocean, that has cut 2 of his new clickbar lines.

[schetsfiguur]

As Toby says plus form a loop in your fingers and run the loop over the damaged area. If it maintains a good radius that is a good sign, if it kinks that is bad/curtains. Personally I would not use that line anywhere that a breakage could cause a problem. From the photo a rough guess would be a visual loss of fibre of 10 to 15%, estimate at least double that in strength loss, but that is real finger in the air.

A mate of mine had a trip to the rocks just a couple of hours ago because of a broken fly line maybe that has influenced my opinion! Tune the bar and proof test it to a satisfactory working load with your body weight is another worthwhile approach imho.

Tried this, and well, the pictures speak for themselves.

Unfortunately Reedin only sells their flying lines as a set of 4 (at €139)... Anyway, I'll have a couple of spares in that case I mess up another line.

[sarc]

Maybe try this preemptively?

[Herman]

The stitch method in the video obviously works. However, if you don’t mind passing lots of line through you can also use a Brummell style lock and just bury the ends. Anybody seen relative strength tests between the two methods??

PS I think it is an imperative to carefully taper the ends to avoid wear points in these types of repair!

[edt]

The Brummel Is a pain in line repair because you need to match line lengths just do a simple class one because you can move the splice until you get the length right and then use a lock stitch at least just use one Brummel not two if you like Brummels

The Brummel is very slightly weaker than the simple splice maybe 1% in any case the quality of your splice job determines the strength of the splice not the type

[Madraoulas]

Because you are thinking replacing or not, I absolutely tell you to replace it because it's going to happen what are you afraid

[Herman]

The point about Brummell preventing small size adjustment is one of the reasons I don’t use it for making up sets of fly lines. However in a repair in the middle of the line that is irrelevant, (unless you are using an exact insert…), as the length match is foobarred anyway. The repaired line will have to matched up with a leader or wear pig where you can adjust lengths accordingly. Either that or I have misunderstood something!

PS one of the things about the lock that I like is that it is easy to ensure even bury length on both sides of the repair and less snag places, but not major points either way. Plus section of line just running parallel to each other is not doing much at all imho, just a waist of opportunity for more friction…..

[rnelias]

Tried this, and well, the pictures speak for themselves.

Unfortunately Reedin only sells their flying lines as a set of 4 (at €139)... Anyway, I'll have a couple of spares in that case I mess up another line.

No chance to swap front and back lines?

[Foil]

would I sail downwind of you in strong winds
no!
if I was you would I change that line?
Yes!
I service bars and lines nearly every day, and shock people when I demo just how easy it is to snap a kite line,
take a 2mtr length of any normal kite line, tie one end to a solid point, wrap the other end around a standard hammer shaft not a big hammer just the standard type, raise to your shoulder and quickly snap the hammer downward, have fun snapping any line you have, old stuff, new line, place a knot in the line and see how little force you need to use, take a bit of slightly damaged white kite line and try to guess where it will snap?
ok the real life situation you will find yourself in may not end in a snap, but try this sure line snapper, get overpowered and release to safety, I get bars in very regularly with a snapped flag out line, sometimes the kite will then go in a spin and take out another line or even slice through the power line pu cover or even lower down get caught on the chicken finger and slice it right off, 2 of them in the last 6 months.
Of course the line may stay solid for years to come.

[grigorib]

Yes. Get custom lines from Jeff Howard at kiteboarding.com if you’re in the US