I am talking very light wind conditions here,, i seem to find myself in them. i really don't want to get into a big arguement about what is lightwind.,,,obviously light wind is subjective to many people but in this case, lightwind means kite is darn close to falling out of the sky if you lose apparent wind and you have to pull/pump front lines to keep it flying
as far as front wing foils go,,, right now , i am mainly using the north sonar 1150 and their surf wing, the sonar 1650.
i have noticed that the 1150 will obviously go a bit faster, and if don't make any mistakes while turning, i can keep my speed up and the apparent wing will keep my kite flying,, but during a toeside carving gybe,, if i make a mistake,,, in super light wind,, the kite will fall out (but not completely on water) and there is so little power in the kite now that loopoing and swooping and trying everything,, it can be very challenging to get up and riding again
so at this point, assuming i get to shore, i will switch to the 1650,, and it does help in the light wind,, i can get up easier and it doesn't stall at lower speeds, which is good cause the kite is not making that much power,,,but even though i think it helps, i seem to be running into the problem of getting speed for a gybe,,or rather keeping speed thru a carve.
the kite does not make a lot of power doing a downwind gybe in very light wind, so the big thick surf wing kind of drags the speed down thruout the turn. if i could keep more acquired speed up during the turn, i could catch the kite easier when i got on the new tack and put some tension on the lines and then easily build up some apparent wind and keep going.
what have others with more experience than me have found as far as best all round front foil wings for very, very, lightwind? assuming a competent kiter UL kite,, about 195 lbs, 86kgs, what is max size of wing before getting ridiculously big,, what is best aspect? low aspect, medium, high? low seems to provide more lift, yet high will slice and go faster. if i get a thin wing that slices thru water and has no drag,, am i giving up the low speed stall?
for these conditions, very light wind,, i am on flat water, inland lake,,, staying pretty close to shore because one mistake and it's a sucky float, swim in since about zero chance of relaunch