A drawback I see is that you possibly miss the yellow ball in a high stress scenario. Plus the ball will be flapping around, might get stuck between the slider rope and the harness (or somewhere else), and trigger accidental release (don't go into waves with this setup).
In the early 2000 years, when proper QRs where not yet available, we all played around with wichards a lot. There were solutions that used a thin pin connecting 2 balls on either side of the release trigger. It works, but not as well [reliably as] as a modern QR like the IQR
This.
Which can happen even with a much prised Ozone, isn't it? Or my FS. or...
To OP, the beauty of your setup is having Wichard on all bars connected to a kite permanently.
So we just move the Wichard from bar to bar. Easy. No other release can.
Many many racers are using W. Guessing because simplicity and no tools needed to disassemble.
Heaps of ppl are using W as a secondary release. I think there is no need for that particularly in DIY builds.
The W will outlive all plastic and rubberish releases out there. It's good investment for long term. Maintenance free. No plastic parts, nothing to jam except obvious issue.
I used a wichard attached to my harness for many years. The key to making these kind of releases spinning is to have the mini leash attached above the swivel. I also added a bearing swivel and it worked well. You really only want one of these, attached to the harness, not one per bar.
But this is all history. There is a much better solution for about the same price, namely the seat-belt release from Infexion as mentioned above. The biggest pain with the wichard is accidental release. If you fix that then you have the problem of quick release when you really need it. The infexion release does everything right in this regard: easy to find push-away release like all other chicken loops, unlikely to release accidentally (but time will tell). Mini leash attachment point above the swivel.
No association with infexion, I just think this is a great and unique product. I don't think this is a topic hijack as I am comparing directly with wichard and have used both. Maybe the OP is not interested in anything but the wichard, but other readers of this thread might be.
A drawback I see is that you possibly miss the yellow ball in a high stress scenario. Plus the ball will be flapping around, might get stuck between the slider rope and the harness (or somewhere else), and trigger accidental release (don't go into waves with this setup).
In the early 2000 years, when proper QRs where not yet available, we all played around with wichards a lot. There were solutions that used a thin pin connecting 2 balls on either side of the release trigger. It works, but not as well [reliably as] as a modern QR like the IQR
This.
Which can happen even with a much prised Ozone, isn't it?
I used a wichard attached to my harness for many years. The key to making these kind of releases spinning is to have the mini leash attached above the swivel. I also added a bearing swivel and it worked well. You really only want one of these, attached to the harness, not one per bar.
But this is all history. There is a much better solution for about the same price, namely the seat-belt release from Infexion as mentioned above. The biggest pain with the wichard is accidental release. If you fix that then you have the problem of quick release when you really need it. The infexion release does everything right in this regard: easy to find push-away release like all other chicken loops, unlikely to release accidentally (but time will tell). Mini leash attachment point above the swivel.
No association with infexion, I just think this is a great and unique product. I don't think this is a topic hijack as I am comparing directly with wichard and have used both. Maybe the OP is not interested in anything but the wichard, but other readers of this thread might be.
After all this info I think you're absolutely right Merl, luckily there are better products now. The main reason for me to try out this setup was the fact I had these parts lying around. The wichard came from some old (2003?) integrated harness with quick release setup, I've actually completely forgotten how it worked exactly.
With foiling I like the shortest possible loop and a long depower line so this seemed to fit the bill.
But the infexion and kiteattitude seem a lot safer.