Contact   Imprint   Advertising   Guidelines

Sheeting the rear lines?

Forum for kitesurfers
ronnie
Very Frequent Poster
Posts: 4189
Joined: Sun Jul 24, 2005 6:39 pm
Has thanked: 31 times
Been thanked: 61 times

Sheeting the rear lines?

Postby ronnie » Sun Sep 04, 2011 11:33 am

Currently, racers are starting to sheet the front lines with one hand and steering with the other.

Could it be better to have rear line sheeting inside the bar, where you have one line coming from the centre of the bar, which splits into the two rear lines?
The gearing may be 1:1 to give the same result as the 4:1 gearing sometimes used on the front lines?

User avatar
ChristoffM
Medium Poster
Posts: 196
Joined: Tue Jul 19, 2011 5:26 pm
Local Beach: Langebaan and Cape Town.
Favorite Beaches: Anywhere in the Cape, South Africa.
Style: Hydrofoils! (And surf and old school)
Gear: Cape Town Foilboard and Spotz hydrofoils.
Any kite that can keep up with the hydrofoils.
Brand Affiliation: Cape Town Foilboards
Location: Langebaan (Cape Town)
Has thanked: 0
Been thanked: 0
Contact:

Re: Sheeting the rear lines?

Postby ChristoffM » Sun Sep 04, 2011 7:38 pm

I think that's a cool idea. The benefits over sheeting the front lines are:

- less tension in the rear lines- therefor less pull
- now one could say pulleys overcome the tension, but with rear line sheeting the setup can be 1:1, light, and with less sheeting amounts to get a certain amount of AOA change.
- It's maybe a bit more intuitive to pull on the sheeting line to power up and let go of the line to depower, but the guys already used to sheeting on the front lines might disagree?


Obviously, getting such a system to work, without being overly complex might be difficult. Any ideas/ prototypes?

Thinking about it, sheeting on the back lines will pull the bar around a bit while sheeting in/out, which might not be nice as you want to feel what the kite is doing. Sheeting on the front lines is like sheeting in from a nice steady platform, while the other hand has full feel of what the kite is doing. Also, the depower line will move up and down when you move the bar up and down. Not so cool I think, especially if it gets caught on your harness or something. Maybe the idea is not so cool?

ronnie
Very Frequent Poster
Posts: 4189
Joined: Sun Jul 24, 2005 6:39 pm
Has thanked: 31 times
Been thanked: 61 times

Re: Sheeting the rear lines?

Postby ronnie » Sun Sep 04, 2011 7:56 pm

The big advantage would be the sheeting distance required.

There will be a slight pull when pulling the line and a slight push when letting it out, but most of the force from your hand is balanced by the pull from the kite through the back lines.

If a bar is 50 cm long, you could get 10" of sheeting and most trim straps are way shorter than that.

The racer is steering with one hand and sheeting with the other if he alters the rear lines. The two hands operate almoat independently. Once he cleats the lines, the bar is like a normal bar.

Changing the front line lengths, he has to steer with one hand and sheet with either one or both hands. Each hand affects the other.

The leader lines would have to go through the bar so 4 pulleys would be needed.

There would probably have to be a double cleat, maybe like a minature version of this one.
Attachments
ghk412.gif
ghk412.gif (33.74 KiB) Viewed 1316 times


Return to “Kitesurfing”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Aberdovy kiter, ARK, Baptiste_FR, Bing [Bot], Brent NKB, Chriz76, HALF, headintheclouds, htsc, lollypop, marinjo77, Peter_Frank, SolarSet, Turbaani, Van Hunk, Yahoo [Bot] and 376 guests