but was only written up after a long thingy about upwind performance. I know it might written up different, many reasons. I did not say that it was your only criteria, but it just seemed a little weird to me.

Personally I think anything that resembles a wave count argument reeks too much of wave snakes, which bums me out big time.

Otherwise I think points of smooth power is critical. Kites should move forward, but maybe to as far as a really high ar kite would.

@ Taut: Kite performance determining rider behavior? Is this about traits a wave kite should have or wave etiquette???

Well certainly will kite traits to some extent allow or disallow certain behaviors, but I guess that is not as relevant in terms of upwind. That said, any argument for a kite to go upwind because you catch more waves seems to me to be focusing in the wrong aspects of wave riding, given a smallest common denominator. Not too many kites these days have big problems going upwind. A mad scratch to get back to the lineup first seem weird to me.

Too much focus on the upwind ability I think can be detrimental to the overall wave performance...well I think a lot of choices you guys as designers have to make aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, but they are certainly not easy to optimize at the same time. Tradeoffs etc...

...which is why I was curious to see what people are putting most emphasis on. To me upwind performance is pretty low on the totem pole..but of course that might be because I haven't had a kite that doesn't go upwind well.

[quote="lander"]...no pull in turn (yo be able to stay on the wave...[/quote]

I think this should be rewritten to: controllable pull in the turn. Doing a turn and looping the kite sometimes means that I want pull and sometimes means I just want the kite to change direction fast without pull.

A wavekite that responses to steering input even when depowered would be nice.

And of course fast restarting to prevent wave damage

Well, wave riding is done in waves... Catching more waves is an inseparable part of the term "wave riding", otherwise it would just be "riding". Is there something I'm missing here? Unless you mean to say something ethereal like "it's not the destination, but the journey, man", there IS no other aspect to wave riding. As far as the right side of the ethical front, you don't run right in front of someone on the line, but if you are both outside working your way back, all is fair.

I think it is about time to put the old word AR in to fashion again

Cause to day, most brands are so scared of using terms that could specify the kite as anything but a freeride kite. If you read the decription of a race kite, it has almost the same adjective words like a wavekite. The brands are very scared to loose a customer by writing this is a wave kite or a race kite, so allmoust all kites get stamped like a freeride kite. A shame I think.

But I like a wavekites to have low AR and a race kite high AR. And I like to buy the kite for the purpuse Im gonna use it for.

I dont buy a c-kite for anything else but freestyle. And I dont buy a freeride kite for race or waves. I go for the fullbloded wavekite for that specific area. Is that just me ?

Absolutely. Actually, when you look at it, freeride has the largest following of any of the styles, so kite companies hate to label a kite for any of the other categories for fear that that someone who has not done their homework would see the wave designation and not blunder into buying their product. Pathetic. I would not be a happy customer if I was duped into buying a wave kite for my jumping fetish. In fact, kiters are forced to put more weight into independent product reviews because the manufacturers very rarely put anything useful in their product descriptions.

No you are dead right. After all these years I have come to the conclusion that an all rounder means bad to average at everything. Get a specific kite for your purpose is my point of view. You want to race, boost high AR, wave low Ar, freestyle C. Don't fuck about.

Trouble with these specific wave kites,is they havent got the low end or wind range of your basic do it all kite like f1,naish park,so all is lost,every meter counts waveriding,i been out waveriding with many of these wavekites ,when i am on my naish park 8 meter eg there on 10 meter,this makes no sense,TONY

ok, for me in order

DRIFT well, otherwise it's crap in the waves
fast turning with a steady pull
lots of depower just with the bar and as reactive as possible while sheeted out
fast relaunch cause i screw up more than i care to admit

jumping would be nice but not at the expense of any of the above
not concerned with upwind at the expense of any of the above, with a decent board and wind i can get upwind, i want the best kite on the wave i can get (did i mention good DRIFT)