I would still say that there must be some production issue with your soul. Have you contacted flysurfer for a check?Kristan wrote: ↑Fri Jun 07, 2019 10:20 amI have a dilemma.
I had a couple of water sessions with my 12m Soul. I was pretty amazed by its performance, it was pure joy to ride it on a TT. Yet I had some concerning moments. Whenever some inconvenience happened I couldn't just let the kite go by throwing out the bar. Yes, kite lost some power and fell on the water, only to fold, get blown off deeper into the wind window, to unfold and relaunch itself, pulling like a mofo, while I'm trying to catch a breath and coughing out water after another fall. Leaving the kite unattended would keep that cycle over and over again, becoming a trouble for me and other kiters around. Plus I still could not get used to transitions, they are too powered and throw me off the board sometimes. Besides, whenever I wish to take a break riding the choppy water, I can not leave the kite at the edge and let go of it, like I do that with my LEI, so I have to hold the bar and the board at the same time, leaving me with no free hands to access my water flask.
In a month I'm going on a vacation where I'm going to kite a lot. The thing that concerns me is that a lot of the spots there have very narrow shore lines that don't allow to fully backstall the kite for the line length. And these spots are a bit wild, with few LEI kiters who have no bloody idea how to land foil kite. But these spots allow to self land LEIs.
I'm on the crossroad. To keep the Soul and grow into it or get rid of it and swap to LEI. On one hand Soul has unmatched flight characteristics and easy floaty jumps, but it feel like it's on a way higher level than mine. On the other hand there is LEI with its ease of use, safety and comfort in situations that Soul doesn't provide, yet has subpar performance, narrower wind range and not that great for snowkiting, especially in extreme cold temperatures.
Or maybe there are the ways to negate the difficulties that I have experienced with my Soul?
I have more confidence in self landing/launching of LEIs, rather than foils, because I managed to do it even in nuking conditions around 25-30 knots. Plus there are anchor methods of self landing, which doesn't work for foils.foilholio wrote: ↑Fri Jun 07, 2019 1:54 pmI feel foils are far superior for launch and landing than LEI. They definitely require more skill to fly and in general. I guess you need to weigh the benefits. I can actually enjoy the difficultly more. More challenge makes it less boring. In some regard I am tempted to surf with a race kite lol.
Kristen,Kristan wrote: ↑Sat Jun 08, 2019 5:28 pmI have more confidence in self landing/launching of LEIs, rather than foils, because I managed to do it even in nuking conditions around 25-30 knots. Plus there are anchor methods of self landing, which doesn't work for foils.foilholio wrote: ↑Fri Jun 07, 2019 1:54 pmI feel foils are far superior for launch and landing than LEI. They definitely require more skill to fly and in general. I guess you need to weigh the benefits. I can actually enjoy the difficultly more. More challenge makes it less boring. In some regard I am tempted to surf with a race kite lol.
Challenge is good, but I think it's good when it happens more often, rather than twice in a month, if I'm getting lucky.
i had a kinda similar experience(but maybe not as competent on foil)...PurdyKiter wrote: ↑Fri Jun 14, 2019 3:56 pmKristen,Kristan wrote: ↑Sat Jun 08, 2019 5:28 pmI have more confidence in self landing/launching of LEIs, rather than foils, because I managed to do it even in nuking conditions around 25-30 knots. Plus there are anchor methods of self landing, which doesn't work for foils.foilholio wrote: ↑Fri Jun 07, 2019 1:54 pmI feel foils are far superior for launch and landing than LEI. They definitely require more skill to fly and in general. I guess you need to weigh the benefits. I can actually enjoy the difficultly more. More challenge makes it less boring. In some regard I am tempted to surf with a race kite lol.
Challenge is good, but I think it's good when it happens more often, rather than twice in a month, if I'm getting lucky.
I am in a similar funk re: my brand new Soul. I am a competent foil boarder, all Clouds for years. But on almost every transition smooth toe or healside carve I'm coming out of the turn with a ton of too much juice. I've found some relief in reaching up grabbing a float and pivoting the kite rather than a simple bar turn. Somewhat surprised that my new 55cm Ozone Foil Race 17m lines bar doesn't rotate the 12m Soul quicker even when I "fishing pole" turn the bar.
And.... In 2 sessions I've got 2 crashes and a trunk for of a heavy wet kite. I can't explain but there was clearly enough wind. The wingtips had taco'ed together and were on top of each other and would never clear after 25 minutes of trying all the tricks in clean wind.
Solution: I'm either looking for a smaller 10m or 8m Soul... or I'm giving up.
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