Adventure Logs wrote: ↑Wed Nov 17, 2021 5:35 pm
If you can afford foil kite I would say it's interesting experience worth trying but be prepare for love-hate relationship, when foil kite work and you can ride and jump in
I would disagree with a lot of these statements and will blame many of this guys problems with inexperience
agree just keep flying the foil these problems will of course not go away entirely but lesson to the degree that it's not a big deal. You should be prepared to spend as much time on a foil set up and take down total as a tube kite. For a tube kite this means a long time pumping up, then deflating, but for a foil kite, the long setup time is looking at your bridles, making sure they are right and then at packdown, carefully placing them inside the kite when you pack down or leaving the bar attached. The soul is an incredible relaunch machine. Remember you never tug one line to relaunch always tug both lines and do a reverse launch. The soul never takes on water in the first one or two years you own it, it stays filled up with air and unless it gets rolled by a wave you can spend 10 minutes trying to relaunch it, and it won't take on water. The swim is real though. The dreaded bow tie is what does it for me. Sometimes an overhead wave eats it, and then doesn't matter tube kite or foil kite you have to full release. To be sure there is more swimming involved in a foil kite, if like me you like to push yourself and crash a lot.
The soul is my favorite kite I have never flown a kite so nice over the last 10 years. Now as for size. A soul will pull about 2 meters higher than a tube kite of the same size, so if get a 12m soul it will pull about the same as a 14m pivot. I'll be contrary here and suggest a 12m soul not the 15m. The soul is so much more fun than the 12pivot in the same wind, you'll want more overlap. Huuuuge board offs, incredible float.
The problem with a 15m is that if the wind picks up you'll have to immediately switch to the pivot and there are two problems with this. 1) you don't get to develop your skills with a foil kite when it gets windy and 2) the soul will be saved for "garbage wind" only, and it deserves more than this.
what a great kite!
If you want a 19m kite for super light wind, just get a pansh, then you can fly them during garbage wind time. Oh and the pansh? that gulps water like a goldfish. So don't crash it.