O'Brien and Liquid Force running out of money (posting from 2003)

[Iemonhaze32]

Again, glad you found a kite you like.
Read everything you wrote.... .no information provided, just broad generalizations and your opinions based on getting that new kite you like.
No dates, no chronological order, no specifics about anything, who did what...or when.
No specifics of anything LF did to lead the industry, just a claim that LF creates lots of cool stuff that everyone copies, and that LF is responsible for making these companies what they are today.
You mean stuff like the LEI kite, the bow kite, the SLE kite, one pump, the chicken loop, the releasable chicken loop, the front line trim system, the chicken loop swivel, the above bar swivel, the pvc covered sheeting rope, the push away chicken loop release standard, improved bladder materials, improved canopy materials, pulley-less bridles....things like that?
You mentioned nothing about the kite designer they finally hired who gave them the Havoc for 2007....If you think that was leading the industry from day 1, you are a bit confused.
If you had popped off with a bunch of information, based on knowledge of specific contributions, there would be no place to criticize.
There's no trying to prove...the facts are what they are. ....cowardly game....worth? Huh?
These companies were a decade ahead of Liquid Force on the kite end of things....a couple invented kiteboarding, and a few names belong to legends.

Wow you're definitely not the brightest tool in the toolbox.

According to what I just posted, liquid force invented the quick release and also the twin tip. Peter Stevie, liquid force's early designer pretty much set the standards. As soon as they started using it back in the early 2000's it became a big hit with all the other major brands, as well as the twin tip since everyone then seemed to be using waterskiis and surfboards. If you look at everyone riding at your local kite area you will see that 90 percent ride twin tips, something liquid force brought into the game since they started out as a wakeboard company. With just a few modifications they brought twin tips into the game.

No where have I ever said they invented everything like you seem to think. Nor do I know the exact dates and times they did this. I am not a liquid force history book. But I do know that every kite brand has followed their suit since day 1, they set the standards, and have lead the industry into what it is today. I have no idea why you even want to argue about this, or what you are trying to prove to everyone, but the facts remain weather you choose to believe it or not.

And I don't know why you even care about who was designing their products in 2007, or what kind of kites they were flying then, this conversation was about when kiteboarding first started. so please stick to the subject. The legends that brought it here, robbie naish, o brien, don ronahue, erik adler, aaron hadlow all those legends helped create it in their own way with the help of liquid force.

Anyway, I got some wind to catch, me and my foilboard are about to become best friends

[RideLow]

[dracop]

has to be a troll, weird angle/agenda. Dont feed the trolls people.

[Da Yoda]

Iemonhaze32 = PMU

[slim_charles]

brightest tool in the toolbox.

[L0KI]

Wow you're definitely not the brightest tool in the toolbox.

So ironic.
.
.
.
.
Hazey, that would be:
Not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Or:
Not the brightest bulb on the Xmas tree.

[Iemonhaze32]

Wow, really? You're going to call me a troll now after I explain where my information came from that proves you wrong?

Well I hate to tell you this. But nobody here is trolling, I've dug around and did a lot of research before choosing the kite that I'm riding right now, and the only way to get a rock solid kite is to look at all the brands that have been around the longest. And liquid force takes the cake, they have been here since the beggining, and after years of perfecting their products they have made them unbeatable.

It's very funny how people resort to name calling when they get proven wrong. Maybe I should just let them live in ignorance...

[L0KI]

According to what I just posted, liquid force invented the quick release and also the twin tip.
Peter Stevie, liquid force's early designer pretty much set the standards. As soon as they started using it back in the early 2000's it became a big hit with all the other major brands, as well as the twin tip since everyone then seemed to be using waterskiis and surfboards.
If you look at everyone riding at your local kite area you will see that 90 percent ride twin tips, something liquid force brought into the game since they started out as a wakeboard company. With just a few modifications they brought twin tips into the game.

No where have I ever said they invented everything like you seem to think. Nor do I know the exact dates and times they did this. I am not a liquid force history book. But I do know that every kite brand has followed their suit since day 1, they set the standards, and have lead the industry into what it is today. I have no idea why you even want to argue about this, or what you are trying to prove to everyone, but the facts remain weather you choose to believe it or not.

And I don't know why you even care about who was designing their products in 2007, or what kind of kites they were flying then, this conversation was about when kiteboarding first started. so please stick to the subject.
The legends that brought it here, robbie naish, o brien, don ronahue, erik adler, aaron hadlow all those legends helped create it in their own way with the help of liquid force.

Anyway, I got some wind to catch, me and my foilboard are about to become best friends

Okay, gonna try one more time to impart some knowledge.
I know your natural tendency is to reject it, but give it a try, you might learn something......Wake up and smell the spilled milk HazeyLemon.
I'm not having a contest with you here, stop being so defensive and open your ears.
And keep in mind that you are the one that keeps trying with the insults, not me.

When Jimmy Remond and Tony Finn heard about this cool new sport kiteboarding and went to Maui to check it out.
Lou Wainman said to them that he wanted to do wake moves under a kite and asked them to make him a board and it ended up being their picklefork.
Here it is in Tony Finns words:
"Ten or eleven years ago, someone called me and told me I should go to Maui and check out these kiteboarding dudes.
So I went over there and I learned to kite with Lou Wainman and Elliot Leboe.
I was like, wow, what a cool sport, this is f***ing great you know, so we ended up sponsoring Lou and Elliot and getting into the sport.
We came out with our first board, which was the Picklefork. Those boards are hilarious looking back, but at the time they were revolutionary because other people were using boards like windsurf boards. The bummer thing is that for a few years we had really lame investors, so that made it really difficult for us to be as involved in the sport as we wanted to be."
The wake style boards came later, this was all driven by Lou Wainman.
And as you can read Tony say, they could not really get into the kiteboarding business because they had lame investors that were not interested in kiteboarding.
That finally changed in 2003 and LF began to enter into the kiteboarding market after that and nothing really happened until the Havoc in 2007.
The Peter Stevie guy you are talking about is Peter Stiewe, he is well known as the kite designer for Best kites and went to work for them in 2003 after doing some previous work for EH Kiteboarding in the Dominican Republic, he has been at Best ever since.
Maybe he is doing work for LF since Julien left in 2012 but I don't know.
Peter designed the Waroo (2005 I think) for Best and it put Best on the map.
Julien Fillion designed the Havoc late in 2006 and it went to market in 2007 which was the first anybody ever gave one hoot about a Liquid Force kite, and it was still a very mediocre kite, they sold good numbers of them because Real Kiteboarding had a deal with LF and pushed them heavily.
I had one for a couple days and sent it directly back because my 2005 kites from Fexifoil and Slingshot were better.

As far as LF being some major force in the board market in kiteboarding, they were doing nothing that others didn't do as well.
Five companies were chasing the same few kiters around and putting their ideas into boards.
Slingshot was early with the same pickle fork designs that LF did with Lou Wainman.
I had a LF picklefork 2002 or 2003 and it was not very good, I got a Slingshot Dimi Twin next and it was much better.

As far as the safety release, this is who and when - French Patent No. FR 2698847, Legaignoux, published Jun. 10, 1994.
In case you are unaware, this is the same guy who invented the inflatable kite, which eventually became the Wipika AR.

You have said multiple times that LF have led the way in kiteboarding from day 1.
Now you are saying "I do know that every kite brand has followed their suit since day 1, they set the standards, and have lead the industry into what it is today"
This is just nowhere near the truth by any stretch of the imagination.

I'm not trying to prove to everyone, I'm trying to straighten you out on your very skewed view of kiteboarding history.
What does this mean...? "The legends that brought it here, robbie naish, o brien, don ronahue, erik adler, aaron hadlow all those legends helped create it in their own way with the help of liquid force". ...??
You mean Don Montague?...yeah he is a kite pioneer and got started with kites in 1993, the guy is responsible for tons of innovation.
Robby was there when some other guys got going with kiteboarding and they egged him on and by 1999 he was doing Naish kites, the guy was already a windsurfing legend.
O Brien ...? Huh?
Eric Adler...? Who?
Hadlow became a name in kiting long after many people here were kiters, he is great but he was a small child when kiting got going.
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Okay, I've given it a shot several times...you can lead a horse to water but a stitch in time saves nine.

[RideLow]

Loki: Peter worked on the design of a LF kite in 2002/2003.. before working with Best but while working for Eric hertsens..

Apart from that, spot on

[L0KI]

Thanks Low!
I had a LF kite shortly after they got funded (like 2004) and it was a terrible kite, not nearly as well built as two other kites I had.
I bought it directly from LF, they were looking to get some kites out there and were willing to sell them directly.
But I did not like the Havoc either, underpowered, not that well constructed, and flew not as well as my Flexifoil or Slingshot C kites from 2005.