Air gibes in marginal winds

[Regis-de-giens]

thank you for your message and your welcome for the video;

Yes , exactly, you got it ... you turn only after you have started sending the kite to the zenith ; this has 4 good consequences:

1- you still have lines very tensioned, hence the kite is very agile when initiating the turn

2- as soon as you start turning (toward downwind) + get your body a bit more vertical, it kills most of the lift of the kite and you are not pulled out from water (like you would have been for a jump)

3- the remaining little lift of the kite holds part of your weight on the foil, and as you become "lighter" on the foil you can turn the HF quicker around the axis of its mast, 180 degre in one go.

4- after lifted by the kite, you are then upper on the water, so you have some spare energy to re-accelerate (by pushing down the foil) and going upwind again to tension the lines (this timing is more tricky and not always 100 % successful for me right now)

ps : the kite shall be turned up to face down in the center of the window, to force it to stay in its power zone to get a good acceleration after the turn ; you can end-up with a loop, specially with a LEI, but for a foil kite it does not improve the upwind

[tomtom]

1+ same experience here. As i rode very underpowered all the time - this just work for me.