bragnouff wrote: ↑Mon Apr 12, 2021 10:36 am
Maybe it's different on the snow but it would also be my opinion that, when kitefoiling, my 9m wave LEI has better upwind abilities than the 5m Peak4. I also think it would have a higher top speed, although the limiting factor for that is in my thick surf foil which tends to max out at about 22-23 kts when pushing it hard, so top speed isn't really a factor there. I'm pretty sure I can point a bit higher with the LEI, which seems to have a wider wind window, and more forward pull on the edge of the window. (definitely noticeable when body dragging out).
Ease of use, setup and downwind abilities of the Peak still make it my first choice for foiling.
I mentioned "snowkite" but on my small competition the surface was 'soft' ice and some thin snow patches so that edges held against it without sliding. So it was like with hydrofoil, very minimal friction and on ice so no need to "lift&keep" my mass as wing loading to hydrofoil. Naturally on snow/powder would require more force to pull, similar to body dragging if you want to maintain speed.
It could be that when sheeting kite more kite flies more deeper in WW, and as anchor (=board) speed increases WW rotates more relative to truewind, and if you don't sheet Peak4 out "just" correct to redirect kite's pull more forward it might seem to go more downwind than something else. Also leg pressure should be minimal, it is not like a LEI that you lean against kite and more speed more lean due to downwind hauling. Let it pull your CG, not lift it.
On same session I also rode FS Speed5 12m model which gave me 72km/h speed according to ka72.com, when Peak4 5m max speed was 65km/h. There might be natural variance in wind levels / directions during hours of riding on that day so it is not 100% accurate to compare my track only to myself. Below is the 50km track for the day, on same track is 3x (swapping wing with kite with friends on ice) running Duotono Echo 6m wing, 1x Speed5 12m, 1x Royal Era 12m and Peak4-5m session in the end. I can try to re-upload track by traction device instead of riding speed to do the angle comparison by device, which I just said that it is not accurate.