denise wrote:The obly one I am able to try was the pivot size 12. It qas a little big but impressive fast turning kite for a 12. Any one with expirience with the cabrinha drifter and the pivot that can tell me the pros and cons between them? And also maybe comoare with the razor?
Thanks
I have moderate experience of the new Naish Pivots (a couple of dozen sessions on different sizes of Pivots in various conditions), and I've had a few sessions on 2014 Drifters before buying the Pivots. I've also flown some other wave-oriented kites, including the RRD Religions and the Wainman Rabbits. I will comment on those four. (I've also tried the Razor, but only for one session and my recollection of that kite is hazy so I am not going to make any comparison to that kite)
I would say that the advantage of the Naish Pivot, compared to the Drifters, is that the Pivots turn a bit faster and have somewhat lower bar pressure. Both kites drift very well, but the faster and more reactive speed of the Pivots makes that kite a bit better if you like to / need to whip your kite around a lot as you surf the waves. Whether that matters depends on your riding style and the wind direction - in perfect wind and wave conditions where you can just let the kite hang in one place as you ride the wave down the line, both kites are equivalent. The slight advantage of the Pivot comes out in less-than-perfect conditions and/or when you want to move the kite around a lot. Both kites can turn without generating a ton of pull - the Pivots simply do it faster. Both kites depower really well.
Outside of waves, the Pivot jumps surprisingly well and has good hangtime, and it can loop with some punch if you sheet in and/or make the radius of the loop larger. The Drifter is more of a dedicated wave kite and it's not a kite that you'd happily take for a flat-water session if you had a choice.
Both kites have a very good wind range, take you upwind at a good angle, relaunch easily, and are solidly built.
One slight problem with the Pivot is a long bridle that can get caught around a wingtip if you crash your kite in the water and it gets eaten by a wave. I've had that happen twice so far. Both times the kite sorted itself out fairly quickly after I semi-randomly pulled on some lines, but it is still an irritant and it delayed the relaunch when it happened. I am not sure if this can happen with the Drifters so I am not sure how the kites compare in that regard. If you want a wave-oriented kite with the option to fly without bridles (preventing this problem from ever occurring), then look to the Wainman Rabbits. Those also work well in the waves and are excellent all-round kites, but they sit deeper in the wind window and consequently go upwind less well than the Naish Pivots and Cabrinha Drifters. They also don't depower quite as well as the Pivots and Drifters.
I've seen some factory defects on a couple of my friends' Cabrinha Drifters (badly aligned stitching causing somewhat assymetrically formed canopies and/or struts when the kite is inflated, resulting in a slight pull to one side), but I think that kind of production defect can happen with any kite. I would recommend that you always pump and carefully check any new kite that you buy and complain / get it replaced if you notice any problems.
The octopus inflation system on the Naish kites is a pain in the neck when the day comes that the internal valve in the struts becomes delaminated. Because the valve is internal, there is no easy way to re-glue it. What could be an easy 10-minute job on any other kite becomes a somewhat complex operation on Naish kites.
If you want a fast reactive kite with low bar pressure, an alternative to the Naish Pivots would be the RRD Religions. Those turn very quickly and with little bar pressure. They do have bridles though, just like the Pivots and Drifters.
All that being said, all these kites perform well in waves and I have a hard time imagining that you could buy any of these and end up being unhappy about their wave-riding ability.
