Peter_Frank wrote: ↑Sat Dec 12, 2020 9:35 pm
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I have always been sure the 4-5-6 m2 racefoil (or other double skin relatively okay performant foil kites Soul or similar) kites would give you even better lowend, than the Peak4 or FireFly kites.
On cost of ease and drift of course - but that is not the topic here, only how low can you go.
But when reading in here, and talking to friends, and seeing what they ride, something seems odd, as they seem to need a bigger kite than us using Peak4 kites, even with the same foilwing...
The more peak power (for its size) a kite can generate, the lower wind you can foil.
In the medium sizes 10 to 12 m2, nothing beats the racefoil kites in terms of lowend, because of that.
But in supersmall sizes (I dont know it there ARE racefoilkites below 7 m2?) it does not seem to be the same, or what do you guys/girls say?
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Hi Peter,
I used a sonic(1&2) 6,3 m² quite a lot, just the last year I turned to ride more and more the Peaks. Actually I have a
- 6,5 m² Peak4 on 14 m² line
- 6,3 m² Sonic2 on 13 m² line
laying around and maybe one day I can make a pretty fair 1:1 compare.
But anyway no doupt about the result, which as always depends from further issues:
As long the freerace kite has enough line length for a clean loop, there is nothing that can beat it for the start. And as long you have a very low drag at least medium speed foil you may start and also ride. If line lenght starts to be to short which can be for the 6,3 m² already at < 11 m then it can be that the Peak starts to win as a 6,5 m² Peak should be still fine to loop with only 10 m line.
And as also named there is a further aspect, when already flying the hydrofoil and it is too draggy it could be that the race kite will be slowed down that it can't generate enough pull to level the high foil drag. Already had this experience with a 9 m² Sonic and a 1500 cm² surf foil: Loop start no problem but after that dropping again, and the same again and again, as not enought line length for flying sinus. Could be, also here a Peak in the same sizes could win, maybe.
But if you want to do a longer excursion along the coast around islands with changing winds where you may find just 9 knts but also gust up to 35 knts and maybe have to go 10 km direct upwind ... there is just no doupt which kite to take.
The same but the other way around when looking for a long unhooked downwinder in decent swell. Nice to have both options