used 14m apollo or 12m gong strutless for LW foiling?

[Michaelr123]

Hey there,

Question for everyone,

where I'm at, most people have a 14m apollo for cruising in ~10mph of wind in the middle of the summer. I found a bar and lines with an apollo for about the same cost of getting a gong strutless. What would you all recommend? the highest aspect ratio kite i've flow is my 17m turbine, so I don't really have any experience with that sort of kite. I've also never flown a stutless kite, and i don't know anybody who has, but i've read lots of positive things about them recently.

[FLandOBX]

Hey, Michael.

I don't have any experience with Gong strutless, but I have a quiver of Apollos (14, 12, 9, 7) that I use regularly. The 14 m Apollo is a great kite. I use it primarily for TT riding, but I use the smaller Apollos for foilboarding. The 14 m is solid in the air and pulls like a truck. IMHO, it's easy to relaunch (you'll sometimes hear people say that Apollos are hard to relaunch). As a super high aspect kite, it likes to fly close to the edge of the window, jumps well with great hang-time, loops well, rides fast, and goes upwind exceptionally well.

On a TT, I don't think you'll get any more low end out of an Apollo 14 than you do out of your 17 m Turbine. Cruising carefree on a TT in actual 10 mph wind is difficult with any LEI (I'd hydrofoil or use my Flysurfer 15 m for wind that light), so you shouldn't expect the Apollo 14 to perform miracles in super light summer wind on TT. It's at it's best in the 14-16 mph range with full on power and speed. It's absolutely a great kite.

The high aspect nature of the Apollo makes it a good hydrofoil kite for hydrofoil. I use my 9m and 7m Apollos for hydrofoil a lot. In lighter wind, I use a FS Soul 10 m. But I the Apollo 14 is a good hydrofoil kite, too, although the 12 m is probably better in lighter wind due to weight. Hope this helps.

(edited to respond to hydrofoil question)

[Michaelr123]

I was thinking about a Soul as well, obviously in a different price category, but I do miss flying foil kites from my lessons last winter... the reason i'm pitting these two against each other is the $500 price tag.

[RalfsB]

I much prefer light low aspect kites for hydrofoiling. It is much easier to use something that turns fast to get going and something light that stays in the air in low winds.

[Flyboy]

Hey there,

Question for everyone,

where I'm at, most people have a 14m apollo for cruising in ~10mph of wind in the middle of the summer. I found a bar and lines with an apollo for about the same cost of getting a gong strutless. What would you all recommend? the highest aspect ratio kite i've flow is my 17m turbine, so I don't really have any experience with that sort of kite. I've also never flown a stutless kite, and i don't know anybody who has, but i've read lots of positive things about them recently.

No, I wouldn't recommend a 14m Apollo for LW foiling. The Apollo is a high aspect kite, good for boosting big floaty airs. Unless you're heavy, a 10m - 11m kite is the most you would need for foiling in 10 knots plus. Once you start getting below 10 knots the most important characteristic you need in a kite is light weight & stability in the air in light conditions. That's where a strutless kite (or foil kite) excels.

[Peter_Frank]

Agree with Flyboy, stay away from the Apollo, almost every single aspect of such a kite has the worst possible characteristics for a kite for hydrofoiling

Many struts, heavy, high aspect, slow turning, too big and powerful for a LEI for hydrofoiling, bad relaunch

Good for other boards and a powerhouse, but IMO almost useless for foiling...

Go for the 12 m2 strutless of these two, not in doubt

Peter

[cglazier]

I was thinking about a Soul as well, obviously in a different price category, but I do miss flying foil kites from my lessons last winter... the reason i'm pitting these two against each other is the $500 price tag.

I'd highly recommend a Flysurfer Soul over any strutless kite. It works very well with a hydrofoil. I fly my 12m Soul in wind from about 9 knots to maybe 25 knots (although over 20 knots I have usually switched to my 8m). No strutless kite has anywhere near that high wind range. I also have a 12m one strut kite that I occasionally use and even it has nowhere near the range of the 12m Soul.

Another advantage of a foil kite is that it holds you up longer when you are doing jibes and tacks and other tricks, making them easier.

CG

[Whattheflock]

10-12m strutless/single strut is the key for ultra light wind. It'll be interesting how an aluula performs though..

[Michaelr123]

10-12m strutless/single strut is the key for ultra light wind. It'll be interesting how an aluula performs though..

thanks for the recommendations everyone. I wonder why all the local guys have landed on apollo's for foiling then? seems a bit odd to me... I guess it looks like a soul, but i'm sure it performs very differently.

anyway, I think I might give a gong strutless a try, even if i had to get a 12 and 10/8m to cover what one flysurfer could do, its still so much lower cost that I think i'm going to head that route for awhile. I still need to get my Fsurf package as well to get onto a real foil rather than my 2015 foil fish Eventually I would like to end up with a 12/10m flysufer soul, but that might be a later purchase as I start building my quiver to fit where I'm heading with this sport.

I've been following the Aluula page as well. I hope it really works like they're claiming it does, it would be the next leap in kiting technology. Sort of like how everyone says "all the kites after 2015 are great at everything" if you've been kiting since 2005 before standard safety features and what not. in 5 years we'll all be talking about how all the kites hang in the air perfectly and 6-8 knots of wind is plenty to get out there! from all the AWS report outs, it sounds like every kite company is working hard to build lighter weight gear which is awesome to see. Exciting times to be kiteboarder!

[DAnderson]

I liked the apollo in smaller sizes for gusty conditions & boosting; not my pick for lw.
The strutless do fly in light winds, although I've found some to be on the gutless side for generating the required power in lw.