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Sonic 4

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TritonFoils
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Re: Sonic 4

Postby TritonFoils » Fri Jun 17, 2022 11:57 pm

Derek what is the difference between the Spirit and the Instinct. The GIN website is frustratingly opaque about this. Is one more Soul like and the other a Sonic. But a lot of the feedback on the Spirit is that it is more Sonic like. In short trying to figure out if the instinct is the Sonic 4 I am looking for! :)

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Re: Sonic 4

Postby Ice101 » Sat Jun 18, 2022 2:30 am

I must say I had another look at the gin website. Shame the boom2 isn’t free ride they do that in an 11m and that looks pretty swish in the black and red I like it.
Any one tried the sonic 3 in the 11m and the 13m tell me which is ultimately more fun and the better size?

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Re: Sonic 4

Postby derek440 » Sun Jun 19, 2022 3:14 am

Yes the Instinct is similar to Sonic and the Spirit is more like Soul in terms of cell count and aspect ratio. I always said the Spirit has the edge on Soul v1 - it is after all a newer kite, then Soul v2 came out i think it is very similar to Spirit, but Spirit has a slightly more aggressive/resonsive edge, slighty higher AR and is slightly lighter, but very similar. In the same way I think the Instinct will be comparable with the Sonic v4. I remember having conversations with Soul v1 owners and I was saying I thought the Spirit fabric is better and that also makes for better flight characterists and launch/relaunch and hanging in the air, durability etc and a few Soul owners swore the v1 could not be improved and the fabric is perfect etc and then the SoulV2 came out... with all the things I said could be improved mostly based around the new fabric but with the same proven great design.

My thoughts on Sonic3 is they carried a few issues over from the VMG (they tried first to make it from Soul and it didn't work so they worked backwards from VMG) including folding/flopping whilst reverse launching and the kite being a bit tricky to tack and gybe (not for advanced riders/VMG people) and occasional tip-fold, sonic be tricky for people learning manouvres who tend to hang on the kite/bar which Sonic can respond badly to. The instinct has the most lift of any kite i have ever used, you almost have to be careful to not paraglide through tacks and if you mess one up you can just hang hard on the bar and limbo your way through without the kite doing bad things. For me being a beginner/intermediate racer and also using the instict with a free-ride foil and twin-tip and in the surf (small surf) its perfect. It is also crazy that with all that performace the Instinct is one of the most durable foil kites ever made. The fabric was developed with a Korean parachute textile manufacturing company called Myungin in close partnership with Gin Paragliders (also Korean) and was specifically designed for durability, non-porosity over time/washes and strength-to-weight. It turns out the Myungjin fabric is gradually taking over the gin gliders range starting with the tandem, then the paramoter wing but now also the performance gliders are moving to this fabric, and same for the Gin Kites range, Instinct is the first kite with myungjin fabric and Marabou v2 will be in same fabric, coming out soon. Others in the range may follow, possibly even the next version of the olympic race kite the boom for the next olympic cycle after paris 24. BoomV2 is made from the best race cloth available at the time of the current olympic quad lock-in before 2020 which is/was Porscher cloth from France.
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Re: Sonic 4

Postby TritonFoils » Sun Jun 19, 2022 6:17 pm

Very neat Derek thanks for these insights. Question about relative power. Do u find the 8m instinct comparable to 9 sonic 3? Eg is it a more efficient kite particularly with the power spike when you loop to water start and get up on the foil. The 9m Sonic 3 is my largest kite and I am always looking for ways to ride smaller to get the benefit of more speed from the kite. I can get up and riding pretty reliably in say 9kts on the 9m sonic 3 (8kts if it’s denser, colder air) and find it an impressive kite for this reason given it’s generous top end range. I wish Flysurfer also made smaller kites in the Sonic line. If u have your own wind range data for the 6, 8, 10 instinct I would be very curious to hear.

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Re: Sonic 4

Postby direnc » Sun Jun 19, 2022 8:50 pm

Hi Derek,

According to the specs published on the Gin website the Instinct has a wider wind range than the Spirit on both the bottom and top end. Is it really the case? If so, why and how?
BTW I weighed the Instinct kite of a friend, and its heavier than the same size Spirit (200g difference on the 15m).
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Re: Sonic 4

Postby nate76 » Mon Jun 20, 2022 1:56 am

The Instinct is a bit heavier than the Spirit, primarily because it has more cells and is higher AR. Just like the Boom V2 is slightly heavier than the Instinct for the same reason.

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Re: Sonic 4

Postby derek440 » Mon Jun 20, 2022 2:16 am

The wind ranges issue can get pretty complex, Flysurfer went through similar questions with Sonic wind ranges and Armin posted a video explaining how the choices were made, so its a bit tricky. One of the factors is that a higher AR kite can sit further forward in the window so you can hold more power. Also a higher AR kite will power through the window with more of a power spike so the hydrofoil wind range can be higher as you can get your ass out of the water better/earlier/in less wind, but there is a technique part to that also involving stalling/looping and foil pumping. The lightest wind riders I know are all racers and using high AR race kites and then they also "rig big" all the time, they'd only pull out a sub 10m kite if it was a cyclone.

TritonFoils I'm not the best person to answer you question above for that reason, I am heavy (115-120kg in wetsuit) and I mostly ride a very small race foil (chubanga3 or levitaz R5). I have a 10m instinct and only use it very occasionally to race when the wind is crazy strong, but I can hold down a 12m instinct up to almost 30kn on my race foil so its just a different game. I sometimes will use my big surf foil and grab smaller kites to try and downwind on bumps but lately I've been using the single-skin Gin Shaman (4m, 6m and tried the 12m in 6kn successfully) for that so i'm not sure about instinct range for that. But in terms of water starts I have at times gotten caught in dropping wind on the 10m instinct and found it water starts me surprisingly well in lighter wind. In a video on my youtube (derek440) I took out a Spirit 8m for a race when it looked like it would blow 30kn plus and got on course and it was more like 15kn and dropping and I managed to start and race totally fine which was surprising, the bottom end of Spirit keeps surprising me, if you aren't interested in high upwind angles I'd prefer the Spirit for free-ride. I sold a 6m Spirit to someone in Melbourne who uses it as his only kite and loves it. Based on him riding that 6m i have had several others buy one just from seeing that wind range in action, he reckons he can use that 6m in almost any wind where others are out, he uses it with a big surf foil. Sorry this is vague, but i reckon the wind ranges for instinct and spirit are similar to those for soul and sonic.

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Re: Sonic 4

Postby Schietwedder » Mon Jun 20, 2022 9:14 am

To get back to the discussion a bit with small foilkites, I can also confirm the 6m one kite solution is pretty handy.

I have made a freeride 6m which compares with nova/hyperlink in therms of AR (5.1). It's a bit different than Soul as the soul has a different shape and profile thickness.
Its not as high AR as the Sonic/Instinct. I'm working on a 7.5m with a AR of 6.5 though, and race profile and see how it compares.

My experience on the 6m:
It gets going really early because I get a lot of pull flying through the WW. With the Moses 633 surf wing and 72Kg I get going in 10-12 knots without looping and can easily hold it until 25knots.
With the Moses 645 race foil (similar to 637/607) the low-end is also remarkably low as well, maybe 1-2knots higher than with the surf foil. Because the race foil has such low drag and good glide once you get up some apparent wind also the upwind angles get remarkably good in underpowered conditions. Downwind you have to start with a lot of apparent wind and then not stop edging to keep the apparent carrying down with you, then there's also quite good downwind angles to be achieved in light winds.
Top end on the race foil does not exist if you are a good rider I guess with the 6m if it doesn't get too gusty for foil kites.
Just to get an impression of the apparent wind effect on the 6m:
Last week I reached 26knots (48.2 kmh) in 12/13knots of wind, going so fast on such a small kite in light wind is pretty fun as it flies so dynamically and there is no pressure at all on the bar.

If you want to go below 10knots, together with a large high AR foilkite (12-18m) you don't need anything else.
Also drifts remarkably well because of the small size.

Why you would need higher AR than 5 for a small foil, I don't yet fully get as the performance is quite remarkable already, and above 20knots it often gets quite challenging with gusts, but I'm keen to find out with the 7.5 AR 6.5 in autumn.
On the same foil a friend usually uses UFO 9m when I take the 6m and we go quite similar speeds and angles.

I know a lot of people requesting small high AR kites but I think fewer of them have tried small freeride foils to see if the performance is not already satisfying enough. There is a lot of difference between lets say a Soul/Hyperlink/Nova/Gin whatever in size 9m and 6m they get pretty dynamic below 8m.

BR Niklas
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