Wingtip Pulley Mod - Wingtip Batton?

[Wisha]

I have an Ocean Rodeo One 12m. It is really heavy, really slow and has a terrible bottom end. Any ideas one making this lighter, faster or at least have some bottom end power would be great.

[eree]

Let me get this right, you removed the line that connects the back line to the front bridle that runs through the pulley, and then (I can't see much else that you have modified on the front bridle)???
...
I thought of another option: get a longer bar and reduce the interconnecting pulley line length. This will reduce the leverage but hopefully the longer bar will make up for the reduced turn-abiltiy.

hi rich
my flow has pretty long bar already 70cm.
now when i unfolded my kite i see that i've sent wrong picture earlier. that was one of tried options and it did not feel right.
so now see pictures below, i took away red (cross bridle), green, pink and purple lines. instead i used two v-lines and two pulleys on each side. i chose the length of those lines by trial and error. most important that any of bridle lines will not slacken in any kite position in the window. same goes to canopy wrinkles.
personally i hate pulleys and long bridles but in this case it works.

winds

[Alan]

Hi Alan,

Is this the correct bridle line highlighted in BLUE, if so I have been playing with the line length to the extent of shortening it by up to 8cm. I have picked up a slight change in bar pressure. I think if you go to short it will reduce the bottom end range of the kite by making it more C shape???

wingtip_pulley.JPG

Cheers
Rich

Hi Richswing,

No, not the blue one. Shorten the one closer to the wing tip (the one that runs through the pulley). 07 Nano (the 3 strut version) had different knots on this line for tuning (and this kite also had the front and rear bridles connected through this same pulley location. It might seem counter intuitive, but try it. I don't know for sure what it will do on your kite.

My experimentation has been on kites with separate front and rear bridle. On this type of bridle, it works.

Good luck and please report your results!!

Alan

[Alan]

I should add that the reason that this works is due to the swept back tips of SLE kites. Different kites have a different amount of sweep, and some accelerate more sweep closer to the tips. This is why the line on the front bridle closest to the tips will have the greatest effect on adjusting the tow point.

As you get the bar pressure too light, you start to lose depower dramatically. There is a fine line that you don't want to cross. But there is a range within the sweet spot that can please every preference.

Some kite companies have been incredibly stupid on this. SLE's are so much more versitile and easy to tune than C kites, yet many consumers have been turned off by a certain kite because the bar pressure is "too heavy" or "too light".

Kite companies: Are you listening? Add some different attachment points on the leading edge or at least multiple knots on a bridle line.

Alan

[richswing]

Hey Guys,

Eree: Your approach is vary similar to the REV I think, it would most probably improve the depower on my kite and I think it will also make the tow point more variable which in turn improve the " Flying off the Front lines " as my kite tends not to like loose back lines, which has been an issue with me as my kite skills are still vary raw. The downside is the pulley's, I have XBOW 2 which lost a pulley and went into a death spin. A loop around the pulley could improve on that.

Alan: My kite is vary similar to the bridle you described, I have the 08 Nano, really enjoy it, did have issues with it at the beginning but was mostly due to my lack of flying skills. The old school guys seemed to have no issues.
I did think of the adjustable spanning bit but could not remember what line they did it on and could not find the 2007 Nano user manual.

Like I said really enjoyed the kite, but when doing downwinders (which I do mostly) my left arm is the predominant arm used and a bit of tendinitis kicks in. The bar pressure is substantially less than my Xbow which actually did the damage.

My only concern with doing the mods, are the safety aspect and most importantly I do not want to loose the turn-ability of the kite.

Thanks
Rich

[Wisha]

Be careful here as some kites with the front lines attached so low on the leading edge (as in the picture above) will have no depower since the kite will be flying entirely on the front lines only (ie the front bridle is covering almost all the kite).

[Neptune]

Look at the AKPO bridle setup of GK kites - V-Sonic and Trix - for the ability for user adjustment and explanations.

The V-Sonic even does have wing tip batons as you originally asked....

http://globespirit.com/globespirit/view ... ?ID=Vsonic

[dvntsurf]

rich

applogies for going off topic - but I found that what really helped my tendonitis was mixing my ridding with more strapless. Don't really know why - but it worked amazingly. but this is a very interesting kite design discussion.

tim

[Henrythepeacock]

Hit the gym boy