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Peter_Frank wrote: ↑

Mon Oct 12, 2020 3:13 pm

But packing double skin foil kites DOWN, is horrible - it takes so much longer to get these deflated and packed in the bag, that everything you gain on the start compared to LEI's in terms of less time, is more than lost.

About equal for me, maybe just a little longer, considering you don’t have to disconnect the bar like with LEI. 15m Flysurfer Race with tiny deflate:
1. roll up bar just past first set up pulleys and apply buggies. Bridle Lines loose enough that wingtip isn’t getting pulled up with bar in middle of TE.
2. **Stick free end of bar inside the kite through the open deflate valve so most of bar is inside kite.
3. Fold kite in half starting with downwind tip, grab upwind tip as you reach it.
4. Give kite a little shake and separate bottom and top tip in left and right hands so top half of kite blows/moves ACROSS the bottom half toward and sometimes past the LE, pulling all the bridle lines with it onto the bottom half. Kite will sometimes fill with wind LE down requiring some shaking and tip pulling to return to flat but bridles will end up between in good position.
5. Bring tips back together and place on ground being careful kite doesn’t blow around too much.
6. Fold tips over together about a yard/meter to help keep kite halves aligned and then roll it up. Slow and steady at the end.
7. Take bar out as you near the end and leave bar outside bag to dry fully.

Just watching @Breze video and I drifted through to the videos of Horst launching in shallow and deep water. Lots of detail in both videos to take in. I notice that as Horst unrolls his lines he can pull the top and bottom lines to separate the bridles because the kite is preinflated but stalled so he has tension but not too much power.

I reckon you could do the same on land if you were underpowered (hydrofoil session) though you'd need to get used to the discipline of unwinding evenly first.

No problems with the time packing up. Yes, its a little slower than its possible to do with an LEI but its not a big difference compared to packing down properly with an LEI - though my soft kite is only 10m so that might be a lot faster to deflate.

I use a line organizer to keep the four kite attachment points separate from each other, then tuck that into one of the inlet openings of the kite. Put all the bridles on the kite, fold in half, roll.

The bar has a similar organizer, so attachment of lines to kite is quick. Attachment of lines to kite does not require sorting/walking beforehand.

Some kites have thin bridles, makes them much more prone to tangles (loops in constrictions, snags, etc). My Marabous have thin spectra near the kite and take double the time to make clean compared to my Kitech kites. Can't see it taking more than a minute to sort for either, once the lines are attached.

I usually wrap the lines around my bar until the pulleys and speed system are wrapped up and only the thin bridle lines are left, then roll each wingtip towards the center. I then ALWAYS unpack and repack my foil kites when I get home. I lay them out, shake off the sand and/or let them dry, run out the bridles to make sure the kite is ready for launch next time, then I concertina the ribs together as demonstrated in this video:




This sounds insane compared to just throwing a wet LEI in a backpack in a ball, but I have found that this extra 4.7 minutes of work when I get home results in cleaner gear (less sand = less abrasion) and an easier time launching during my next session because I know I'm ready to just run my lines, pre-inflate, and launch.

Besides the fact that these days, I'm very suspicious of storing foil kites for longer than a few minutes rolled up. I think that a lot of the tip tucking and weird collapse behavior from earlier days of foil kites was bent/twisted structure because we didn't know yet that it deformed our leading edge ribs. I'm not overjoyed that Ozone will void your warranty unless you pack the kite right, but it seems to be a recommendation based on necessity that actually preserves performance characteristics.

I use a couple of garter clips, one on each side. Once fitted they remain on the kite. I just wrap the bridles up and clip in each side before rolling up the kite. This means when unrolling the bridles stay sorted on each side and only takes seconds to lay them out.
Also tends to hold the bridles within the kite, rather than falling out when rolling up.
This is my 12mtr Soul.

I am way faster with my foil than the tube. But I also only have a small 5m foil to deal with very simple bridle which I wrap up until the pulleys and end up without tangle. Otherwise I do pretty much the same as you do. G

Thanks for all the responses. Based on the info here, I suspect my problem may be not maintaining adequate tension on the bridles during the pack/unpack. This seems like the opportunity for the tangles (not actual wrapped but just caught within one another ) and seems like an easy adjustment to make to my technique. Thank you for all the tips.