Flysurfer Peak 4

[merl]

Who here has extended their barthrow?

I don't think this is needed with the 5m peak and below. I don't know about the bigger sizes. That said, all my bars have a long throw away..

[a99]

Maybe there could be solution for Peak4 stop of flapping?
viewtopic.php?f=197&t=2407199&p=1104979#p1104979

[geron]

For me, the 5m and my foil is a one kite quiver (&board). I can go from 10 to 25 knots. It is so much more reliable than a lei since it doesn't fall in light winds and I can relaunch anywhere in our sandy beach coast line for long down-winds (no pump or punctured bladders jaja).
If I have to say something "bad" about it: It might not be the best to learn to hidrofoil, since the kite would not relaunch in the inevitable frequent water drinking learning sescions. (eventhough it is very eassy to fly)

[Peter_Frank]

Who here has extended their barthrow?

I don't think this is needed with the 5m peak and below. I don't know about the bigger sizes. That said, all my bars have a long throw away..

As long as you have the depower strap, it makes no sense to have longer throw, as you only use one quarter of a typical bar throw.

The reason I need to use the depower, is when I ride waves, I need to have the kite okay powered so it does not flap, when leaning hard into a bottom turn.
Riding with the bar pulled instead of having the arm bent, feels wrong to me, so I always power the kite up so I can surf leaning forward in a natural stance

For allround riding I like to ride with the bar a bit closer to me.

But even when trim powered up so bar away from you, there is still room to depower it fully on the last little stroke.

Peter

[tkaraszewski]

I cant believe you got that back up! Kudos for effort dude. That was a floppy crash for sure. Mostly due to the fact you let the bar all the way out. Let it crash on purpose like that and I bet it gets floppy every time! Crash holding the bar and your far more likely to get a straightforward LE down that holds shape or a wingtip drag to drop on either LE or flat onto its back. Both recoverable if you know which one your dealing with. You get flippy floppy like that and all bets are off until you do a reset. No one said this is a water kite for everyone, but you've just shown that even being new to it, with a little persistence you can get it back up from a near worst case scenario. A little practice and you will pull it off on the first reset.


My thoughts:

That whole guesswork section at the beginning was time wasted. If you're not sure how the kite is oriented and don't luck into something after 30 sec, its a reset. The more you mess around with it tensioned as a sea anchor the more water logged the kite and the messier the bridle. Decide quickly and swim to it while wrapping with as little tension in the lines as possible. It looked like you pulled the kite to you as you wrapped, which makes for uneven tension in lines being wrapped and a much harder unwrap. Swim to it arms over your board kicking like its a kick board, wrapping well with the goal of setting up a clean unwrap. It was windy enough to make everything a challenge, but the key is to get it sorted and onto its back with ZERO line tension. You cant open it up and let it out from there. For sure open it up while holding near the LE of both tips so you can make sure the bridles are not wrapped around the back, but then close it again, tip to tip and get it flat on the water. Then let out wraps of line from the bar to get the whole bridle out and a few more wraps of flying line to provide the needed slack. Hold up the top tip enough for it to catch, fill and then let it go. It should flop out straight downwind with you holding the upwind tip, Bridles all on the TE side. Then its a matter of pulling the upwind tip toward you an arms length at a time and flopping it to the side to get the kite oriented properly to catch wind, still with no tension on the bridle lines, especially the rears. With no tension it should stay flat. Then let the kite go and unwind fast enough to get the rest of the lines out cleanly before they tension and be ready on the fronts with one hand and the bar in the other to control the catch, fill, tips emptying and launch.

This actually sounds pretty spot on. Once the kite bowtied itself, there was probably no relaunching it without straitening it out first, and with more practice, I'm sure I'd get better at it. I don't know how to tell if the lines are inverted on the water, though it's not too critical as foil kites will fly OK with the steering lines inside out. In some ways this was a "difficult" relaunch, but then I did get it back in the air with no previous experience relaunching this kite. I had more trouble relaunching closed-cell foil kites before I was experienced with them.

[darippah]

What's the top end of the wind range for the 3m Peak with 1) race hydrofoil. 2) Surfboard

For those of us that like to ride powered up

[seppalord]

Just coming back from a sundowner with my 13m p4. I begin to like this kite, not as much as the little ones, but its getting close
Was riding in its sweet spot (8-12kn), no flapping whatsoever, pretty smooth ride. Takes some time to turn, but if you get accustomed, its quiet fun.
Better driving a slow tractor than walking and with the sun going down, heartwarming

I just had some ear flapping at the start, I guess that's beacause the tips weren't filled with air properly. After some shaking at the rear lines it was gone.
No ear flapping while riding (24m, low v), this seems to be only a problem when overpowered. I had't had the chance to ride the 13m with 15m lines as recommended by PullStrings

[bragnouff]

I kind of come to the conclusion that the Peak4 is a foiler's kite (or a snowboarder's kite) as opposed to a kiter's kite. I've used it snowkiting last weekend, and it was sweet, took me wherever I needed to go, flew fine in shitty winds, looped predictably, really nothing to complain about, did the job it was meant to do. However, yesterday I went for a low tide buggy session, and over the last year I was using the Peak 5 or 8 for that, no hassle of carrying a pump, always flew fine, pulled me along... anyway, yesterday then, I decided to go with my (HB Legion) 9m LEI. About 10 kts, kite holding in the air fine, but barely any static pull, but f*ck, that was my most fun buggy session in quite a while. The dynamic rewards of aggressively flying a tube kite were just very obvious. Lots of poke in the turns, massive drifts (of the buggy), meaty loops to keep me sideways for longer, very noticeable bigger wind window to play with, faster through the window, some brutal spikes of juice. Overall it was a very exhilarating ride!
So, while the Peak is a very dependable kite, one you can pretty much forget and concentrate on riding your board, I'd say it is a bit too tame, placid, and maybe not super exciting to fly. There are times when flying a kite like a maniac is a big part of the fun, and that's not where the Peak shines that much.

[Trent hink]

Maybe there could be solution for Peak4 stop of flapping?
viewtopic.php?f=197&t=2407199&p=1104979#p1104979

The best solution is rig a smaller size. If you just see the trailing edge flapping a bit, that's no big deal.

But if you are hearing it and find it annoying, then you will have much more fun on a smaller size.

One of my more experienced friends pointed out that if you are overpowered and the kite is flapping a lot, you can control it better by slightly oversheeting and backstalling the kite.

I can get this tactic to work somewhat, but it takes some skill and you need a bar set-up that allows a little bit of back stall. Older bar and lines probably already have this- but a new bar and lines or one that has been carefully maintained and tuned might not.

Next size down is a much better option.

[haiku]

Flysurfer Peak 4 4 m, kitefoil session in strong and super gusty wind at Porto Pollo, Sardinia. Sometimes the trailing edge was fluttering but this wasn't an issue at all.



Cheers

Carlo