WH Lithuania wrote:I tried it at the lake. Elf Joker 7 11m has massive wind range. It was like 7-20 knots and there were no probs handling it. Except for sure on low wind downwind angle wasn't impressive.
Actually I'm not sure that I mastered downwind course. I feel that I ride downwind much lower angle than I ride upwind, especially in lower winds. I go for several seconds straight upwind and then I spend few minutes to come back downwind. I simply pull bar and position kite near 3 or 9 in the window. There should be some better method.
Going downwind fast should result in almost the same leaned over body posture as going upwind...you're essentially tricking the kite into thinking it's going upwind by going so fast that the apparent wind shifts forward, this forces you to keep tension on the front lines by hiking out. This is how you can go at 160* to the wind downwind, you need to keep the speed on. If you touch down or slow down or raise the kite high, you'll have to ride more crosswind to keep the kite powered up.
It takes some getting used to, every time I'm in the "optimal downwind angle" mode, I feel like I'm holding on for dear life and persistently dread hitting something underwater or losing control because crashing at 30+mph really really really sucks.
But yeah, if you want to go more dead downwind, go faster :-p