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Videos - Cloud Foiling in SF Bay

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rowboat
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Videos - Cloud Foiling in SF Bay

Postby rowboat » Fri Jun 20, 2014 7:07 pm

I've been riding BRM Clouds for 18+ months now and loving these kites! So rad. The Clouds are simple, elegant, beautiful, light, fast, nimble, compact, well-made, and incredibly efficient. People ask, what's the downside? For me, there are none. I've tried kites with struts since then, and I've never been enticed to go back.

I love what Greg (BRM/Cloud founder/designer) says about the no struts? question: "Over the last two years of sharing the Cloud kite with riders and being asked 'why strutless' it occurs to me now that a good first step toward the answer is a willingness to ask 'why struts'?"

This seems to me to be an example of a sort of backwards evolution that happens when technical products mature. Early on in a technical cycle we add all sorts of bits of technology, trying to achieve certain performance characteristics without really understanding the underlying nature. As we learn, we are able to gradually thin out the technology and achieve the performance we seek by replacing our levers with those already present in nature. As our designs become more refined, they start to disappear. We know we have built something good when we can feel nature well through our tools. If our gear obscures what the world is trying to tell us, we know our gear still needs improving. I love flying Cloud kites most of all because I can feel exactly what the wind is doing, and I can transmit my thoughts to the kite with unconscious ease and delight!

Anyhow, the point of this post is more to share some videos that I've shot of foiling with the Clouds and my Alpinefoil in SF Bay. Most recently:

5m Cloud foiling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55ZiKDQ_Rrc
7m Cloud foiling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0xDjCeozrA
9m Cloud foiling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_ClXE5j2Vw
12m Cloud foiling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNtHp2yDQyc

Just sharing the stoke. I love my Clouds, and my foil. Of course, they work great with regular water-pusher board as well :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hasJIqhdMOQ

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Re: Videos -- Cloud Foiling in SF Bay

Postby Hawaiis » Fri Jun 20, 2014 8:27 pm

Great videos, maybe you should also post it in the hydrofoil section too. :thumb:

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Re: Videos -- Cloud Foiling in SF Bay

Postby jplmain » Fri Jun 20, 2014 9:12 pm

Vids are great thanks. I notice you installed your Alpine on a North Nugget I guess. I would to see a pic of your placement on the board. If you had a chance to position it some were else forward or back would you? Thanks if you could post.

I am looking for a light wind kite for my alpine foil do think a 14.5 cloud would be to much?

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Re: Videos -- Cloud Foiling in SF Bay

Postby NYKiter » Fri Jun 20, 2014 9:18 pm

funny narration captions
:lol:

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Re: Videos -- Cloud Foiling in SF Bay

Postby rowboat » Fri Jun 20, 2014 10:51 pm

@NYKiter -- thanks!

@jplmain -- yep, it's a Nugget. Great foil platform and I already had it lying around. Placement yes I am a bit too far forward on the board for my taste but in practice it doesn't really matter. We installed the FBox exactly according to the instructions from Damien @ Alpinefoil. I haven't had a chance to circle back with him on that subject.

About the size of Cloud... I have a 12m Cloud and with that and my Alpinefoil I can ride in 8-9mph wind. I don't really see the point of more than 12m with a foil. I weigh 190lbs. Perhaps if you weigh more, but the more time I spend on the foil, the LESS kite I want. LESS IS MORE :)

@Hawaiis -- thx, I checked, and apparently they moved it to the hydrofoil section.. hmm

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Re: Videos -- Cloud Foiling in SF Bay

Postby Randahl » Sat Jun 21, 2014 12:47 am

Great videos. The 5m and 9m ones were my favorite. I wish we had wind that warranted a 5m or even a 7m.

You almost have the full quiver, just missing the top 2 sizes, that shows commitment.

I have the 14.5 C2 and a Lift foil, it's hard to dial in the light wind size, because I feel like in that 8-10 mph range I need all of the kite to pull me onto a plane and build boardspeed, but once the apparent wind kicks in I often long for something a little smaller that I can comfortably lean into without getting all rodeo on the foil. I ride it with the foil into the high-mid teens and its manageable as long as I stay away from beam reaches. It is tough when you are OP'd and sheeted out and the kite is low and you can't turn it to go higher in the window because the steering control drops a lot when you sheet out. That's when I turn downwind and then put the kite back high in the window and turn upwind again.

Do you get a friendly reception amongst all the race gear at Crissy? I've encountered some skeptics because the kite doesn't have a race pedigree and what am I doing foiling without a race kite?

Then again, seeing Stefaans blow your doors off on the Edge... Then again, it is Stefaans, and I don't know if you were trying to keep up. I know I get my doors blown off all the time by a certain rider with his spotz + chrono + skills.

I have said it before, the Cloud has saved me so many lightwind days that I lost count. Even today when the wind poked above 10 mph for an hour I was out there while an Edge lay on the beach.

Light kite, turns fast, packs small and simple. Naysayers be damned, the smile on your face tells people all they need to know.

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Re: Videos -- Cloud Foiling in SF Bay

Postby SpunMonkey » Sat Jun 21, 2014 5:21 am

Thanks for the videos. I Like to go for a nice cruise in light air-the 12m might be a great inexpensive way to do it!

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Re: Videos -- Cloud Foiling in SF Bay

Postby rowboat » Sat Jun 21, 2014 6:41 am

@Randahl

Where are you? I have no need for anything larger than the 12m. I can ride that down to 8-9mph with the foil and, well, lighter than that I can stay in bed. As I mentioned to someone else, the more I ride the foil the more I have to train myself to rig small, very small. I think I could probably run a 5m + 9m quiver for foiling, or 5/8/12 maybe.

Funny what you say about Stefaans blowing me up. He's a good friend and we were playing around. In that video he's on an early Spotz and I was still really just learning my foil. He's since ridden my Alpinefoil and says conclusively that it goes upwind 10° higher than anything else he's ridden. Slower, but higher angle. Very simple question of lift. The Spotz, etc are SMALL compared to the Alpinefoil XLP, which is quite a large foil. In that video you're referring to I was going off the wind to get the video angle and he was tracking upwind; if I had wanted to I could have tucked in and angled even higher than him.

As far as the kite is concerned, the Clouds are lower aspect than the Edges that most of the racers are on right now, yes. I'm not racing, but I don't suffer for any sort of whatever reception there at Crissy. To the contrary. Everyone is open minded and simply seeking the best performance and raddest gear that they can get their hands on. Again, I'm not racing (yet), but many of my friends there at Crissy are starting to recognize the unique properties of the Clouds, at least for free riding. Racing TBD, but I did have a very amusing and fun moment there on Thursday where there were 3 racers with Ozone Edge's down in the water on the inside in very puffy holey 0-20 mph side-off conditions, and I launched with my 7m Cloud and and threaded my way through them all, talking to them as them sat in the water as I rode by, and then blazed through the wind line and upwind of the whole pack of racers. That did not go un-noticed by the racer crew.

Party on!

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Re: Videos -- Cloud Foiling in SF Bay

Postby Randahl » Tue Jul 01, 2014 12:32 am

rowboat wrote:@Randahl

Where are you? I have no need for anything larger than the 12m. I can ride that down to 8-9mph with the foil and, well, lighter than that I can stay in bed. As I mentioned to someone else, the more I ride the foil the more I have to train myself to rig small, very small. I think I could probably run a 5m + 9m quiver for foiling, or 5/8/12 maybe.

Funny what you say about Stefaans blowing me up. He's a good friend and we were playing around. In that video he's on an early Spotz and I was still really just learning my foil. He's since ridden my Alpinefoil and says conclusively that it goes upwind 10° higher than anything else he's ridden. Slower, but higher angle. Very simple question of lift. The Spotz, etc are SMALL compared to the Alpinefoil XLP, which is quite a large foil. In that video you're referring to I was going off the wind to get the video angle and he was tracking upwind; if I had wanted to I could have tucked in and angled even higher than him.

As far as the kite is concerned, the Clouds are lower aspect than the Edges that most of the racers are on right now, yes. I'm not racing, but I don't suffer for any sort of whatever reception there at Crissy. To the contrary. Everyone is open minded and simply seeking the best performance and raddest gear that they can get their hands on. Again, I'm not racing (yet), but many of my friends there at Crissy are starting to recognize the unique properties of the Clouds, at least for free riding. Racing TBD, but I did have a very amusing and fun moment there on Thursday where there were 3 racers with Ozone Edge's down in the water on the inside in very puffy holey 0-20 mph side-off conditions, and I launched with my 7m Cloud and and threaded my way through them all, talking to them as them sat in the water as I rode by, and then blazed through the wind line and upwind of the whole pack of racers. That did not go un-noticed by the racer crew.

Party on!

I'm in SD. The comment I made about needing the grunt of the 14.5 to get planing should probably be qualified with 1) sometimes that's in the SD Bay, with a slight current running 2) sometimes thats at the beach, where swell and chop is messing with me 3) sometimes its in flat water, so I can't attribute it all to the water conditions. 4) the MHL might be a little more narrow than the boards that most guys have foils on, so maybe it doesn't plane as well.

I agree with what you're saying about the cloud often being the lone survivor of holey conditions. I took out one of my old kites and was used to flying the cloud and got a little too lenient with how far toward 2 o'clock I let it go. Into the surf it went.

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Re: Videos - Cloud Foiling in SF Bay

Postby Peter_Frank » Tue Jul 01, 2014 7:29 am

Randahl, what line length do you use when its light ?

Its just, even on a small board, I think you can loop the kite to get on a plane, and pump the board up on the plane actively with your feet.

Then you should be able to start with one size smaller, and get going without being overpowered :thumb:

You probably know all this, would just be sure :wink:

Current or not does not change this balance between starting power needed versus foiling depower needed though :roll:

My experiences are, that a big kite (maybe like the C 14.5) is awesome in absolute marginal conditions yes, and works perfect.
But you could have one only slightly smaller, because just a tad more wind, and you can not use the 14.5 that well (at least this is my experience although with a Dyno 13m2)

My point is, that diving and looping the kite, and pumping with your legs, are all essential for getting up foiling, especially in light wind, if you dont want to feel overpowered when up :naughty:
And a tad smaller kite can IMO generate the same power when looped.

For racing it is a different matter though, and bigger sizes are used :lol:

8) PF


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