Contact   Imprint   Advertising   Guidelines

Light wind: SONIC 17m unbeateable

Forum for kitesurfers
fernmanus
Very Frequent Poster
Posts: 1868
Joined: Fri Jan 23, 2004 5:53 am
Has thanked: 35 times
Been thanked: 172 times

Postby fernmanus » Thu Jun 14, 2007 5:24 am

Always funny how foil fans never cease to come out and get on the case at the slightest hint of any 'light wind' thread ... like they have some inbuilt 'light wind discussion' radar
True statement - Let me tell you why. I have one foil that I use on the water and it is exclusively for light wind riding. The rest of my quiver are SLE's. The kite I fly is the Flysurfer SilverArrow is is a 19M foil that generates the equivalent power of a 26.5 "C" kite (figure about 21.5M bow).
It has excellent range. I weigh 180 LBS and I can ride it in wind ranging from 8 knots to 18 knots very comfortably.

Is it fun? Yes, it is a blast. Jumps are super floaty. Plus it is excellent on the snow as well.
Attachments
Skyline Air.JPEG
Skyline Air.JPEG (103.45 KiB) Viewed 1456 times

Dr_Rosen
Very Frequent Poster
Posts: 1192
Joined: Fri May 04, 2007 9:29 pm
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 2 times

Postby Dr_Rosen » Thu Jun 14, 2007 11:33 am

fernmanus wrote:True statement - Let me tell you why. I have one foil that I use on the water and it is exclusively for light wind riding. The rest of my quiver are SLE's. The kite I fly is the Flysurfer SilverArrow is is a 19M foil that generates the equivalent power of a 26.5 "C" kite (figure about 21.5M bow).
Correction. I don't owe either. But I was on the beach when a SA19 was bosting while an old C 26.5 m2 couldn't go upwind. The SA was doing way better. 2 Cabrinha Contra 17 were doing better than the C but not nearly as good as the SA

fernmanus
Very Frequent Poster
Posts: 1868
Joined: Fri Jan 23, 2004 5:53 am
Has thanked: 35 times
Been thanked: 172 times

Postby fernmanus » Thu Jun 14, 2007 12:45 pm

Correction. I don't owe either. But I was on the beach when a SA19 was bosting while an old C 26.5 m2 couldn't go upwind. The SA was doing way better. 2 Cabrinha Contra 17 were doing better than the C but not nearly as good as the SA
26.5 M C kite...Hmmm, never heard of that one??? Was it a Gaastra Phoenix 25M or a Naish V4 25 or 30M?

just do it
Very Frequent Poster
Posts: 676
Joined: Mon Dec 29, 2003 5:26 pm
Gear: Airush Varial-X, Airush Apex
Brand Affiliation: Airush
Location: Bavaria
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0
Contact:

Postby just do it » Thu Jun 14, 2007 1:03 pm

Dr_Rosen wrote:
just do it wrote:This picture says it all. :thumb:
But is it fun?

..........Honest question as I haven't tried it. Is it worth the spend????????????
This is the question that everybody puts in the room.
Let me answer it this way.
We had a demo locally where the wind god only blessed us with 5-10mph and a lot of guys had a go on the Silver Arrow and 15m Speed2s. These were the only kites being able to get people up and going.
The result of this demo was that we sold 5 Silver Arrows.
So it must have been fun for the guys who bought them after having had a play with them.
As is the case in most sports people like to get different types of experiences out of it. The young hotshot might just want to ride when he can use a 11m C-kite or smaller to do kiteloops but there are a lot of kitesurfers who don't see kitesurfing as being limited to wakestyle powered up riding.
These are the ones that get a kick out of cruising upwind in the lightest of breezes, on superflat water and relish in the fact that they can be outhere when everybody else is still landbound.
Look at Freds latest lightwind video. He is outhere playing with the Dolphins. For me that beats sitting on the beach, moaning about the wind anyday.

Dr_Rosen
Very Frequent Poster
Posts: 1192
Joined: Fri May 04, 2007 9:29 pm
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 2 times

Postby Dr_Rosen » Thu Jun 14, 2007 1:06 pm

just do it wrote:[Look at Freds latest lightwind video. He is outhere playing with the Dolphins. For me that beats sitting on the beach, moaning about the wind anyday.
Do you have a link?
Personally I would like to have one, but it is a lot of money ............at least that's what my wife tells me :-)

User avatar
jrobson
Very Frequent Poster
Posts: 843
Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2005 10:28 pm
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Postby jrobson » Thu Jun 14, 2007 2:21 pm

http://www.kiteforum.tv/component/optio ... Itemid,30/

I can't believe how nice the video from that cam looks!

sadorno
Rare Poster
Posts: 24
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2005 4:12 pm
Brand Affiliation: None
Location: Miami
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Postby sadorno » Thu Jun 14, 2007 4:10 pm

Another question to FS (foil) owners. I worry sometimes when there is a lull that the wind may be calm for a while and it will be hard to get the kite back up. I can easily get my 07 Sonic 17m up in 5 knots in the ocean with some chop. Under that it is a little difficult.

How difficult is it to get the FS up? I have no experience on one and have never even seen a foil at any of the 30+ places that I have ridden. Also, intuition tells me that it would be very hard to relaunch, but I have never tried.

How is the relaunch capability compared to a 5th Line C, and a bow kite.

Thanks!

User avatar
Tom183
Very Frequent Poster
Posts: 3332
Joined: Thu Apr 01, 2004 6:23 am
Brand Affiliation: None
Location: The United Mistakes of America
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Postby Tom183 » Thu Jun 14, 2007 4:43 pm

sadorno wrote:Another question to FS (foil) owners. I worry sometimes when there is a lull that the wind may be calm for a while and it will be hard to get the kite back up. I can easily get my 07 Sonic 17m up in 5 knots in the ocean with some chop. Under that it is a little difficult.

How difficult is it to get the FS up? I have no experience on one and have never even seen a foil at any of the 30+ places that I have ridden. Also, intuition tells me that it would be very hard to relaunch, but I have never tried.

How is the relaunch capability compared to a 5th Line C, and a bow kite.
One of the biggest advantages of foils in light wind is that they STAY UP! I can launch the S2 19m in 4mph and keep it in the air by working it a little - I don't know of any LEI that can do that. And if your spot gets lots of big lulls, the SA2 (lightweight fabric) stays up even better.

Relaunch depends on lots of things, and in light wind NO kite relaunches easily - which is why staying up is such a big plus. How difficult depends mainly on how the kite landed - if the kite lands nose-down it will be quite a bit harder to get up than if it is sitting on the trailing edge (and that applies to foils and LEIs). LEI's have the disadvantage of their extra weight (especially the big C's), while foils can fold over in a bad landing or take on a few pounds of water (less than a liter) if they sit for a long time (5-10min or more - which isn't exactly a "lull", IMO) - in any of those cases, you'll need more wind to get the kite back up, but it is doable.

My S2 tends to get wet only when I'm trying to "make something happen" in less wind than I need to ride, or when I feel the wind shutting off and don't head in soon enough - although if I'm still planing, I can loop the kite and usually make it back to shore with a dry kite.

As the wind gets stronger, the bows are a little easier to relaunch than the Speed2 (not a lot), and 5th-line C's are noticably easier - when you have plenty of wind.

sadorno
Rare Poster
Posts: 24
Joined: Tue Jul 12, 2005 4:12 pm
Brand Affiliation: None
Location: Miami
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0

Postby sadorno » Thu Jun 14, 2007 5:03 pm

Cool!

Thanks for the info. I would love to test one. All I care about is being out on the water as much as I can.

Sean

FredBGG
Very Frequent Poster
Posts: 3458
Joined: Tue May 24, 2005 3:38 am
Brand Affiliation: None
Location: Malibu
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 42 times

Postby FredBGG » Thu Jun 14, 2007 6:02 pm

sadorno wrote:Cool!

Thanks for the info. I would love to test one. All I care about is being out on the water as much as I can.

Sean
You should hook up with Dr Lightwind. He's in Miami and has a Speed 2 12.
Much smaller than the Speed 2 19, but he does really well in light wind.

Cheers

Fred

PS If your in the LA area some time you can check out my kite


Return to “Kitesurfing”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Baptiste_FR, Bartolo, CaptainKook, Clarencephil, DanielorDani, dpublic, Google [Bot], Indulang, knotwindy, madworld, MKM, mrcrss, nothing2seehere, Regis-de-giens, sflinux, vela99 and 180 guests