Postby Kupono » Sat Aug 25, 2012 10:20 pm
Jonny,
I've been riding Griffins for about three years now. I started with a 2010 10m Argonaut because I got a deal I couldn't refuse. I didn't have high hopes for it because it was a pretty unknown brand in this hemisphere and it was cheap and one assumes that cheap means crappy.
I was happily surprised and it turned into my favorite kite. I rode it for a year, then, because I liked it so much, I bought an 8m and 10.5m Chimera, and a 9m Argo. I paid less for those three kites than I would have for one name-brand kite.
The Chimera model was new for 2011. The 10.5 quickly became my goto kite. I weight 185, but it has plenty of grunt for me. It has good boost (better than the Argo), quick turning (faster than the Argo), light bar pressure (on its light setting), and it trucks upwind. The 2011 kites are built as well as any other kite I've seen. I've put them through the wave wash-cycle many times and haven't had a blow-out yet.
The Argo is a great kite, and probably a better wave kite than the Chimera, as it drifts better. It has all sorts of adjustable bridle settings to make it docile and slow for beginners, or crank up the performance for surf. I gotta say, though, that all the possible bridle combinations can be confusing and drive you crazy if you choose to experiment and venture from the recommended settings.
Griffin makes three models: the Griffin is their high aspect performance kite. I haven't ridden one. The Argo is the low aspect, delta, all-terrain wave kite. The Chimera is a medium aspect delta-like kite, and has performance characteristics somewhere in between the two. It has single pully, or pully-less bridle setups (that's how I fly it) which gives it a nice direct feel. I only wish the Chimera had better down-the-line drift for wave-riding.Both kites pretty much relaunch themselves.
My quiver is almost two years old now and it's time for a new one, so I'm always demoing other kites looking for something I like better. I like the the Wainman Smoke, the Blade Trigger, and the Ben Wilson Noise (in that order) a lot, but when you consider price/performance, It's hard to do better than the Griffins.
For more info you can Google griffinkites.com.au, and have a look on the seabreeze.com.au forum.