went out for a session yesterday where we spent a lot of time on the beach waiting for the wind. When it finally came up, it was light, the other guys with me were on their 14m apollo's and really fast foils. I knew my NV wasn't going to cut it in the winds we had, so I decided to run back to the car and grab the turbine. Low and behold, a 17m turbine will work for foiling with an fsurf, albeit, almost completely de-powered even in 10mph or so wind. had a lot fun working with the foil and started getting some really nice runs! Unfortunately (for me) the wind kept getting stronger and worse than that it was really gusty. I quickly found out what its like to be way overpowered on a foil lol... in retrospect, I should have gone back in and traded kites, but oh well, I had fun and got a great workout getting beat up by the big girl
I was also wishing I found a 15m instead of the 17! lol
So a few things I learned/figured out, the apollo's are for going really fast, these guys cruise all over the lake at close to 30mph with these things. The Turbine was perfect while the wind was lower and closer to shore for water starting over and over again to get the feel down. Eventually as I started getting better at popping out of the water and staying up on the foil is when I figured out that a giant kite is way too much power very quickly, and didn't want to pull me along at 10 mph without a lot of work going downwind or upwind.
So I did some more reading and I'm thinking of sticking with a one strut kite, maybe i'll try a strutless at some point, but I'm leaning towards a mono right now. To go off that, I've read alot about the ultra, as well as the unik's. I've heard good things about boxers as well. obviously the unik is the budget pick here, but maybe I could find a used boxer or ultra v2 at a similarish price. so now I just need to figure out size, so assuming i keep my current quiver, i see the 10m as the better long term option that rounds out my quiver better. a lightweight 12m seems like what i'd rather have for ultra low wind, but could be a bit much for more normal days but would also be a better pick for learning right away with the bit of extra power for water starting and just being inefficient in general. does it seem like i'm heading in the right direction?