What are the Pros and Cons of using this technique to shorten your lines

[artificialname]

Hello
I'm considering trying the technique in the video below. It's from the youtube channel of Sam Guest - Tantrum.

He recommends halving your lines as a way to try flying on short lines.

Besides double checking your flag out line, any other safety concerns?

Pros and Cons of trying this?

technique:

[tkaraszewski]

This video is 13 minutes long and could be 35 seconds long, but this looks fine based on skipping through it and seeing how he connected one line and the pigtail for it.

[darippah]

Aside from increased likelihood of a tangle, I'd imagine the extra drag of the doubled over lines will affect performance.

Relaunch may be worse in ultralight winds when doubled over

But In light wind I'd be using the longer lines so maybe not an issue?

I'm in a desperate search for a method to increase/ decrease line length as quickly as possible

Currently I use 2 bars for different line length's for EACH Kite - which is expensive , and I don't like leaving a carbon fiber bar on the beach. This is the fastest method I've tried to change line lengths , but still not too quick..

I've now set up my 30m light wind bar on my 7m Soul to be able to shorten with this method and will report back

[Slappysan]

What this person ignores in this video is the steering leader lines might not be equal to the length of the depower system. If they are different lengths you are shortening your front lines by an un-equal amount as your steering lines.

[sflinux]

I've used that technique for trainer kites, as the stock lines are too long imo.
If your stock lines were 35-40 M, this could work. But if your stock lines are 20-30M, who wants 10-15M lines? Too short imo.
Disadvantages:
Put your bar out of tune
Tangles when going to leash
Jams when going to leash
Whistling in the lines
Wearing your lines prematurely.

For me, I would rather cut my lines to the desired minimum length and tune the bar. Then you tune the leftover lines as extensions.

[bragnouff]

Not too sure of the use case of halving your lines length. It's great to go from 25 to 20 or 20 to 13 or whatever, but typically going for half length is way too much. If you're a kite school, maybe, but then you'd have several bars to support that usage.
Extensions, when properly made, color coded and with a slick splicing, are easy to use. The color coding or numbering, or whatever you use, is meant to keep a particular extension on a particular line, and prevent introducing stretch variations into your setup. Clean splicing will ensure that the lines don't catch onto everything, and it will make adding and removing extensions as simple and as painless as it should be.

[edt]

Go for it! the method is legit and don't listen to the haters. I've tried line sizes from 10m up to 100m and learned something at every line length.

right now I always run 23m, but if you have a chance to run 10m do it, it's fun and you learn more about how the lines and kite interact.

[artificialname]

I've now set up my 30m light wind bar on my 7m Soul to be able to shorten with this method and will report back

DARIPPAH please do report back!

[darippah]

I've now set up my 30m light wind bar on my 7m Soul to be able to shorten with this method and will report back

DARIPPAH please do report back!

I did some testing - with my 13m Sonic 3 on 22m/11m lines on HF with this method.

When lines are halved over the kite rides just fine - I'm sure there's some extra drag but it was not noticeable to me.

I even had my kite drop in medium to light window and was able to relaunch after a bowtie.

As of now I Highly recommend this method for those looking for a quick and cheap way to shorten / lengthen lines on a medium to lightwind kite.

Need some "real" wind to test the 7 Soul with 30m/15m lines!