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Best kite for hydrofoil?

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Shadow Jack
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Best kite for hydrofoil?

Postby Shadow Jack » Fri Nov 27, 2020 3:42 pm

Hi, bros!
What kite do you think is the best choice for foiling? Obviously, for each style of riding it would be different kites. It would be cool to discuss!

Personaly, I'm looking for kite to ride slow and playful on a big wing (1200), flat water. Learn turns, ride strapless and so on... Think of 3 strut kite, which has to be stable, comfortibe, drift nicely and relaunch easely. First, that comes to my mind, is wave kites, like Cabrinha Drifter. What do you think?

My experience: fast foil kites - for race foils (small wings) and experienced riders. Works fantastic! Last season I used foil kites (flysurfer sonic2&3) on RDB FreeRace foil. When switched to LEI kite, advantages of nice foil wings disappeared (decreased speed and upwind angle, which where incredible with Sonics). Learning turns and tricks on foil kites is much more complicated, than on LEI kites.

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Re: Best kite for hydrofoil?

Postby tomtom » Fri Nov 27, 2020 4:20 pm

Shadow Jack wrote:
Fri Nov 27, 2020 3:42 pm
Personaly, I'm looking for kite to ride slow and playful on a big wing (1200), flat water. Learn turns, ride strapless and so on...
there is no better kite for this than Peak 4. And by very large margin
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purdyd
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Re: Best kite for hydrofoil?

Postby purdyd » Fri Nov 27, 2020 4:58 pm

The lighter three strut kites are great especially if you are mixing up with a surfboard.

But I would go strutless. Board riding Maui cloud or slingshot ufo.

Unless you spend all of your time kiting in less than 9 knots and then I would consider a peak.

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Re: Best kite for hydrofoil?

Postby tkaraszewski » Fri Nov 27, 2020 5:42 pm

Cloud/UFO for what you want to do.

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jumptheshark
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Re: Best kite for hydrofoil?

Postby jumptheshark » Fri Nov 27, 2020 5:46 pm

purdyd wrote:
Fri Nov 27, 2020 4:58 pm

Unless you spend all of your time kiting in less than 9 knots and then I would consider a peak.
Um, no, this is incorrect.

Peak sizes that outshine others for foiling are 5, 4 and 3m. Now there is a 6m. None of which are appropriate for under 10 knots. Peaks come into their own in actual wind, and anyone thinking they are light wind kites is misinformed.

Under 10 knots you need more efficient higher aspect foil kites. The 8, 11, and 13m peaks might work for some, but by all reports, not in the stand out fashion that embodies the smaller sizes. You cant really play around in waves much in winds under 10 knots anyway. Big kites are just too slow, let alone heavy!

Weight is really only one criteria, but in this case it simply is THE criteria.

Three strut kites cannot even be considered in a list of best kites for foiling. They just cant. Even with plenty of wind, they are no match for the low drag nature of riding a foil. Sure you can have fun and learn the basics just fine, but they cant hold a candle to kites that weight half as much. Single/strutless are the only decent LEI options for the type of riding the OP describes, and even then, I would rate the Peaks as far and away a better option. They literally weigh less than half a Cloud or UFO for the matching wind range. Thats two orders of magnitude better than three strut wave kites! That's just talking weight. There are loads of other flying characteristics that favor the peaks. Then a whole pile of non riding but significant safety and convenience factors that frankly more than cement their status as the best kite for what the OP is asking.

The only reason people will discount Peaks for that type of riding is inexperience. Plenty of people still fear the idea of strutless kites when Clouds were so obviously a massive leap forward for wave/carve oriented kite foiling. Including relaunch! Took more than half a decade for an industry main player to get on board, and now loads will think that strutless kites are da bomb. Too bad they are still half a decade behind!
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Shadow Jack
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Re: Best kite for hydrofoil?

Postby Shadow Jack » Fri Nov 27, 2020 5:59 pm

Peak, as I got from reviews, is less restartible, than LEI. No-strut restarts worse than singlestrut. 3strut gives more backup than 1strut

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tkaraszewski
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Re: Best kite for hydrofoil?

Postby tkaraszewski » Fri Nov 27, 2020 6:39 pm

I owned a Peak 4 (4m) for a bit, and was never that excited about it. Partly it doesn’t suit my style, which is more and more race-oriented, but also it is just not a confidence-inspiring kite on the water. The poor relaunch and ability to twist and fold when crashed discourages you from trying anything that pushes your limits. It’s easy to fly and loop and do the same stuff you’re already good at, but doing things I’m already good at isn’t that exciting to me.

Maybe at a big sandy beachbreak where you’re never more than 150m from shore and you can straighten it and relaunch it anywhere along the beach, that wouldn’t matter much, but that’s not where I typically ride.

But given that I’m not that into underpowered riding on tiny kites, I sold mine and moved onto something different. Granted, for me, that wasn’t strutless inflatable, either.
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Re: Best kite for hydrofoil?

Postby jumptheshark » Fri Nov 27, 2020 6:57 pm

To each their own.

You state clearly your tending toward race style foiling.....

I think the fear of poor relaunch, be it strutless or Peaks is largely a boogeyman. Strutless... takes a tiny bit of learning, no different than say learning to use a 5th line for relaunch. No harder, and every bit as reliable. With Peaks, its only a little harder.

Plenty of us have relaunched peaks, over and over. It's absolutely different from other kites, but in winds you can't get a peak to relaunch, good luck getting a three strut wave kite off the water!

There is a video clip of Horst relaunching 69 times out of seventy.

I've relaunched peaks over 20 times, and have now grown to understand more clearly that particular limitation.

For myself I no longer see relaunch as a drawback, and in fact rate Peaks for deep water drift launching. Go figure.

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Re: Best kite for hydrofoil?

Postby Peter_Frank » Fri Nov 27, 2020 7:09 pm

As already pointed out: Depends on your style.

For waveriding and flat water carving, NOTHING beats Peak4 kites (or ConceptAir FireFlys), as in not even close.

For allround fun and sharing same kites with waveboard or TT riding, nothing beats LEI's.

For speed and performance and ultimate low end, nothing beats "other" foil kites, freeride or racefoil kites.

8) Peter

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Re: Best kite for hydrofoil?

Postby Kitetwin-1 » Fri Nov 27, 2020 7:16 pm

Don’t buy into the peak 4 hype, it is a neich kite in a neich segment of kiteboarding. You will put the kite in the water and you will swim. I have the 8 and am disappointed, many will say I should have bought the 5m blaa blaa blaa. Having said that, there is room in my quiver for the 8m but not as my only large kite fir foiling. I am happily using drifters but hope to switch to the new cab single strut coming out soon. Another thing about the peaks is people say they stay in the air in nothing. Somewhat true when the kite is back in the window but when you are jibing and putting the kite to the side of the window that’s when the kite can fall.


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