How to make a Drake 147 go faster/better for gusty winds

[BLOWN AWAY]

Efficient boards are safer as you need less power from the kite to get planing....

Although i'm talking about early planing here... not speed. Early planing is done with a big floaty board, once planing you'll be slow and safe.

A short directional won't be as easy to plane so you'll need more power... Once planing you'll start going really fast and get that apparant wind effect from the kite bigtime.

BLOWN AWAY

[BLOWN AWAY]

If I REALLY wanted to boost insane amounts of air... I'd use a fast kite like an X2 and get the slowest board with the sharpest edge I could find. This would enable me to go out in radically overpowered conditions and still hold the edge.

Then when the kite is flicked backwards... a faster kite generally speaking has more lift than a slower kite.. you get a double whammy effect.

Proud to talk shit.....

BLOWN AWAY

[aklbob]

all this talk about a fast board needing a fast kite? I used a Wipika Classic (I think thats classified as slow) with a superflat, fast wakeboard, and it worked very well!

Blownaway, to get big jumps with any kite inc X2, you still need lots of speed, if you go slow, sure it'll be a jump, and maybe bigger than when you are in less wind, but it won't be as big as if you went fast....

If a slow board gave you big jumps, why don't we use banana rockered boards 6cm + rocker.. that'll slow it down!!

[BLOWN AWAY]

Maybe I should make one and find out....

aklbob has Susan still got your big red schoolbus??

BLOWN AWAY

[aklbob]

no, I have it now, and it's going to be stripped and reglassed into a 155cm x 45cm 3 inch fat tray for light wind duty. The rocker should be good, and with some sharper edges than it has at the moment, I'll be able to sine a kite like I'm standing on the fricken beach :-0 !! I'll make sure it has only 2cm of rocker too + flipped up tips with separation edges....

[BLOWN AWAY]

Big Red + Big red schoolbus.... sounds damn good to me......

BLOWN AWAY

[aklbob]

I'll paint it a different colour just to loose the nickname..

[BLOWN AWAY]

Have you still got your other board??? You know the other slow red one???

Maybe you should make a small board with that outline.... as it's slow it'll make a great high wind board.....

BLOWN AWAY

[Sake]

Well, I got the small heel fin(s) off.
And I cannot really feel a big difference.

I also removed a big fin and replaced it by the smaller heel fin and still no big difference except that backleg pressure got a lot less. I like the backleg pressure so I put the fins back.

I will probably try the smaller 2003 fins(1.5" instead of 2").

PS I tried the Zeppelin yesterday and damn that's also a very sweet board. Maybe i'll swapp my Drake for a Zeppelin and get a bigger board as my second board. I noticed that the Zeppelin only needs a little extra wind to get going compared to the Drake. I still think about my "old" Olry 186. That boards needs sooo little wind.
So more difficult time to figure out what to get as my second="bigger" board.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Sake on 2002-10-07 00:22 ]</font>