Re: Ozone Zephyr 17m Light Wind Kite
Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 10:05 am
Airsail.....airsail wrote:Has anyone had one to compare to the big Flysurfers, Speed 2 or 3 19mtr? These are the light wind kings at the moment or so it seems.
I'm looking at upgrading my old FS Psycho 17 and wondering which way to jump, can't get a Zephyr to test yet.
Interesting that Ozone is big into foils but chose to build a LEI as a light wind kite.
Tim
I had untill 2 weeks ago a FS 15m SpeedĀ²...all in all I was able to fly it around 8/9knots with my 80 to 83kg, and a directional strapped surf 6'2 board.
My reason to order the Ozone ( besides of having ozones for my smaller sizes) is:
When you have lightwinds, the worst case scenario that can happen is when above us, they decide to close the "windtap" and your FS falls from the sky, I had it on several occasions and that is not the FS 's fault but mother nature who forces you to start swimming.
And there is the difference, or you swim to a floating Island with only 4 lines or you swimm towards a fluffy heap of cloth with a zillion tiny bridels, if all goes well you just roll your lines on your bar and grab the FS kite with a tip and pull it swimming back to the shore, all together with holding your bar...and board, hopefully the kite did not take any water on that swimback to shore, because otherwise you will have a problem pulling it out of the water.
I once had this experience because of the zipper burst and the kite took water along the way, once trying to get it out of the water , forget it, I left it there till ebb tide came and then pushed all the water out.
The difference with tube kite is, you roll in your 4 lines you can put yoruself into your kite ( no danger in getting tangled into the tiny bridle like with FS) and you can even put your bord over the Lei. Or you hange the kite on your security leashline etc....
The tube kite gives a lot more secured feeling to swim back or wait for help etc...
The second bad experience with FS is when you do not have stable winds but pretty gusty wind, the FS will act as a wild bull and not being stable at all, they might just drop, getting twisted etc...there is the tube kite pretty stable again.
These are my own experiences of flying a FS speedĀ² 15m for 2 years...
I am happy with OZONES decission of bringing a "simple" 4 line lightwind kite, no pulleys etc, and I think that is was as easy for them to make a foil because they have that experience too...but still decided to make a tube!
The latest news or gossip I captured was that Flysurfer is/was developping a foil with a tube supported LE...let's wait and see...
Still need to sleep a couple of nights...days...weeks..??? before I can get my hands on my new Zephyr
Frank / Belgium