I am talking very light wind conditions here,, i seem to find myself in them. obviously light wind is subjective to many people but in this case, lightwind means kite is darn close to falling out of the sky if you lose apparent wind and you have to pull/pump front lines to keep it flying
as far as front wing foils go,,, right now , i am mainly using the north sonar 1150 and their surf wing, the sonar 1650.
i have noticed that the 1150 will obviously go a bit faster, and if don't make any mistakes while turning, i can keep my speed up and the apparent wing will keep my kite flying,, but during a toeside carving gybe,, if i make a mistake,,, in super light wind,, the kite will fall (but not completely does not go in water) and there is so little power in the kite now that looping and swooping and trying everything,, it is very challenging to get started again
so at this point (after i make it back to shore) i will switch to the 1650,, and it does help in the light wind,, i can get up easier and it doesn't stall at lower speeds, which is good cause the kite is not making that much power,,,but even though i think it helps, i seem to be running into the problem of getting speed for a gybe,,or rather keeping speed thru a carve, i think due to the drag of the big thick wing.
the kite does not make a lot of power doing a downwind gybe in very light wind, so the big thick surf wing kind of drags the speed down thruout the turn. if i could keep more acquired speed up during the turn, i could catch the kite easier when i got on the new tack and put some tension on the lines and then easily build up some apparent wind and keep going.
what have others with more experience than me have found as far as best all round front foil wings for very, very, lightwind? i'm about 85kg, 195 ish lbs. as far as most usable size, low aspect, medium, high? if i get a thin wing that slices thru water and has no drag,, am i giving up the low speed stall?
for these conditions, very light wind,, i am on flat water, inland lake,,, staying pretty close to shore because one mistake and it's a sucky float, swim in since about zero chance of relaunch
apologies for double posting but i am going to post this in foil kites category as well since very light wind essentially requires a foil kite