Peter_Frank wrote: ↑Sun Sep 26, 2021 9:27 am
Ha haa, I know what you say - my friend has a 4 and a 6.
And many times we are out, it is 5 m2 wind, so he has to make a difficult choice, while I am in the sweetspot
Peter
As the owner of a 6m & 4m Peaks with well over 100 hours using them this year, I have to say this has not been my experience at all. I have almost never found myself wishing I had a 5m. It obviously depends on the local conditions where you are kiting, but in my experience it is very rare for the wind to stay consistently at a level where you're not a little overpowered or a little underpowered at times. When you go out you can never really be sure where the wind will stay over the course of a session: will it pick up a bit ... or will it drop off?
This summer was an unusually light summer for wind where I kite. There were many days when the wind was around 10 knots when I went out & stayed in the 10 - 12 knot range for the whole session. On the other hand there were days when the wind picked up to 13 - 15 knots
for a while. I would perhaps have been more comfortable on the 5m, but would not have come in to switch to a 5m if I had one - not worth it as there's no guarantee the wind wouldn't drop again. If the wind picked up to 15 - 16 knots I would have come in to switch to the 4m. So, although there were periods
during a session where I might have preferred to be on a 5m, I can't say there was a single session where a 5m would have been an obviously superior choice.
Having said that ... I just picked up a 5m. Went out with it this afternoon perfectly powered up ... & then after 15 - 20 minutes the wind picked up to 17 - 20 knots & I had to come in to switch to the 4m. I didn't get to spend that much time on the 5m, but my impression was that it's more like the 6m than the 4m. This is not surprising given the mathematics of the relative sizes.
During a one hour session on the 4m the wind continued to pick up until it was in the 20 - 25 knot range. I was starting to feel uncomfortably powered up, so I came in & decided to give my 3.5m Boxer a try. Was an absolute bitch at first with too much back line tension (even though it didn't
look like there was too much back line tension). It was almost impossible to water start as the kite would start to back stall the minute I put pressure on it. Added some extra pigtails & eventually got it to the point where it performed reasonably well. It was still
way more difficult to water start with than with a Peak, but once up & riding it worked OK. There's really a different technique using an LEI compared to the Peaks - the sheeting is much more finicky. To me, one of the biggest pluses to the Peaks is the instant & very controllable depower that allows you to trim the kite very easily & precisely to shifts in the wind strength or water surface. I put the 3.5m into the water & number of times while trying to water start - it moves insanely fast & the sweet spot for power seems very small. I had to dive the kite quickly while sheeting out & pointing downwind in order to avoid stalling it.
In any case, I now have a 3 Peak quiver. I'd have to say that while the 5m might be the best one kite choice, I would definitely go with the 6m & the 4m if you're going with a 2 kite quiver. The 6m is good from 10 kts (maybe a bit less) to 14/15 knots, at which point the 4m is viable. I would say the 6m is preferable to the 5m in 10 - 13 kts, so the 5m is the best choice only in the 14-15 kt range - although it obviously also works well in less & more.