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RickI wrote:No, all around.

I must have over a dozen traditional C kites including a couple that were never used. They are taking up space while I wait for a good use to come to mind. I wouldn't sell or give them away to be used, certainly not to new kiters. They had their place in history, a real important one, still time and technology move on fortunately for us.

I have donated some old kites for this cause,

http://kiters4communities.org/

Kiters 4 Communities (K4C) is a project by Laurel Eastman and Pete Richardson based in Cabarete, Dominican Republic. It operates as a “Social Business” which means all the profit is “invested” in the local community.

This business hires Haitian immigrants living in the Dominican to create up-cycled products out of unusable kiteboarding kites. Then K4C sells these trendy bags to retail stores like Laurel’s kiteboarding school – LEK.

LEK and Pete underwrite all the administrative costs, allowing 100% of the profit to be invested. K4C is currently supporting two schools for Haitian immigrants, both located just outside Cabarete.

Black tips were known as death traps even when I first started!!

I would always recommend a 2010+ kite for learning.

JGTR wrote:Black tips were known as death traps even when I first started!!

JGTR you are absolutely right, but the problem was not with the kite but with the cabrinha recon system, the way it worked is that you flagged out by pulling both back lines you remember this right? The kite then folded down and landed much like how people self land a flysurfer today. the problem is there is a little plastic insert that the back lines fit into and if you got some seaweed in the recon system, you would get a death loop, this happened way too often. But you can safety rig a black tip any number of ways, you can for instance sew up the recon so it never activates and then fly it as a 5 line kite on a modern bar. They are great kites if you know what is up with them. I flew my last black tip into a tree last year and have been looking for a replacement since. Modern C kites are not exactly the same. So much of the danger of those old time kites was in the control bar, you had chicken loops that would never release under load, horrible systems like the cabrinha recon, control bars with no quick release at all and some control bars with literally 2 inches of throw even though the kite could use a lot more. I know the purpose of this thread is to get people to destroy their old C kites instead of selling them to newbies or strangers, but some of us miss those old kites and don't want to see them destroyed. There has to be a way to make sure you sell them to people who know what is up.

edt wrote:So much of the danger of those old time kites was in the control bar

I agree with EDT, nothing wrong with old c-kites, but I wouldn't include an old control bar with the kite. Those old control bars should be scraped for parts. There are several classic c-kites that I wouldn't trade for a any modern $$$ kite. The safety of newer kites is a myth, there are still frequent accidents each year with modern kites.

edt wrote:

JGTR wrote:Black tips were known as death traps even when I first started!!

JGTR you are absolutely right, but the problem was not with the kite but with the cabrinha recon system, the way it worked is that you flagged out by pulling both back lines you remember this right? The kite then folded down and landed much like how people self land a flysurfer today. the problem is there is a little plastic insert that the back lines fit into and if you got some seaweed in the recon system, you would get a death loop, this happened way too often. But you can safety rig a black tip any number of ways, you can for instance sew up the recon so it never activates and then fly it as a 5 line kite on a modern bar. They are great kites if you know what is up with them. I flew my last black tip into a tree last year and have been looking for a replacement since. Modern C kites are not exactly the same. So much of the danger of those old time kites was in the control bar, you had chicken loops that would never release under load, horrible systems like the cabrinha recon, control bars with no quick release at all and some control bars with literally 2 inches of throw even though the kite could use a lot more. I know the purpose of this thread is to get people to destroy their old C kites instead of selling them to newbies or strangers, but some of us miss those old kites and don't want to see them destroyed. There has to be a way to make sure you sell them to people who know what is up.

Yes I remember the Recon system with the plastic bullets that you had to sand down as they used to get jammed Recon saved my bacon once when I was being dragged up the beach towards some cars etc On the water was quite scary, it worked but it still had quite a pull and in deep water you could still travel quite far while doing a packdown

Did they also work for relaunch? Folding one side of the kite up to get it to roll over??

At the risk of misquoting a 'great' film you could turn them into:

- a hat
- a brooch
- or even a pterodactyl.

Right jgtr relaunch actually worked fine pull in rear lines and it reverse launched or pull in line until recon activated and then let it out so it curved the kite shape the problem is it was unsafe as a safety