First time teaching with the Peak 4 and it delivered. I like to teach kids in sub 10 knots for safety and general comfort and tube kites aren't very responsive in these wind ranges. The Peak 4 is super easy to fly, even as low as 6 knots and provides a lot of low end grunt to yank you out of the water.
As for relaunch, at 8 knots you'll be lucky to relaunch a tube kite and once they are in the water I find having the student launch and keep it in the air is tricky. Sometimes by the time you wade back to them they've crashed the kite again. With the Peak 4 you can safely hot launch it right in the power zone and they are able to easily keep the kite from crashing themselves.
Wind was about 8 knots, student is 75 lbs.
These users thanked the author Slappysan for the post (total 2):
lederhosen (Mon Jun 17, 2019 9:09 pm) • MaximumAC (Mon Jun 17, 2019 9:13 pm)
Yeah pretty much. I think you could probably hold ground on the Peak 4 at his weight so once he's at that point I'll switch him over to the LF Solo for better upwind and boosting.
Keeping the Solo in the air in 8 knots take a fair bit of kite flying skill knowing when to loop and such while keeping the Peak 4 in the air is a no brainer.
but it would be nicer if the kid was wearing a helmet
Why though? I actually have a water sports helmet for him but chose not to use it in this scenario. We are in shallow water with 500m of clear downwind water, there are no hard obstacles for his head to hit other than the board. When there are no obstacles to hit with your head wearing a helmet just increases the chances of neck injury.