MartinO wrote: ↑Tue Aug 02, 2022 9:00 amWe had a windy weekend here so I tested some with line lengths and drift launching. Just to report, 10m was surprisingly neutral in feel. No problem what so ever in air. Like expected it didn´t feel nearly as extremely short like the same 10m on a LEI because of both the bridle length that adds quite a bit of total length and the more centered line connection to the kite. In air the kite felt big and close visually, but in terms of flying it was behaving as good as ever. With 4m extensions, so 14m lines, it started to feel close to a 18m line setup with a LEI kite, so it actually didn´t feel like a short line setup anymore. With 14m both the pop timing the bottom end was almost the same as with my main 18m line bar, but it also took up a bit too much space to fit the rigging area of my spot. A 12 m lineset would probably be a nice sweetspot with a compact footprint and close to full line length feel in the air.
Drift launching was surprisingly easy I must say. The initial impression when I rolled the kite up was "this is going to be a total mess and a night of untangling", but the kite just stick to the water while drifting and laying it out and it sorted it self out impressively ones it got under tension. I actually went to a spot where I so far only have windsurfed and the rigging area is about 3x4m and with a compact treeline all along the shore so it´s totally impossible to even pump a kite up and even less so lay a foil kite out. I cannot even fit the kite anywhere without lines. But now I just took the Soul, walked and swam out 30m maybe and did a drift launch. This opens up some nice possibilities around here to kite where the wind is good, but there is no way to get a rigged kite out through the treeline to the water.
Keep us posted how it goes