This is a brand that does not get enough pimping. This particular, '08 DaVinci 12M is a spectacular kite. I honestly cannot think of anything it does wrong. One local, who flys mixes brands like myself, said he was comfortable on the second tack and thought it was one of the more predictable kites he's flown.

This post is prompted by a session yesterday with the winds in the upper teens. I'm about 85kg ridding one of Jeff Howard's Criminals and got a series of great floaters from the kite. You basically do not need to watch it - you can feel where it is in your hands. One handed, wrist movements are all that's needed to control it.

I also handed it off to another intermediate local who also simply took off. His comment was that he surprised at how well it pulled him upwind. He's probably 90kg and was on LF board.

A brand worth looking at if all the kites at your launch look like the came from the same hatchery.

Jim

Here is another example of this kite. Another local tried it for about 20 minutes .. he did not know the camera was running .. and this clip was taken at about 4 minutes into his session.

http://wetstuff.com/movie/1_20sec_Brent.mov ...this plays better on my Mac

http://wetstuff.com/movie/1_20sec_brent.wmv ... this may work better on a PC ..may?

Jim

... I got a chance to fly this j-n and the EH flat 12 on the same morning last Saturday - 24Oct. The winds were upper teens to low 20s .. I am 86kg. I like speed and jumping - have no interest in rotations or board-off tricks.

The EH is an animal. ..a wonderfully powerful kite that rages when after the small whitecaps, you begin to see white lines on the water. I fly it on a 5-line, North bar. Rigged this way it both over de-powers and backstalls the kite. Over the winter I will mod another bar to limit the backstall but I love the ability to flag the kite - to totally take all the power out of it. I am pretty sure it is faster than the j-n. I prefer to fly with one hand and can control this pretty well with wrist motion. As I only have a few hours on it, I am still dialing in jumps. It rockets upwind. ...it will forever stay in the bag if there are no whitecaps, as it becomes a tow truck rather than relaunches in lower winds.

The j-n is high performance but comfortable. Where the EH's power is wonderfully brutal, the j-n is smooth - almost electric. The j-n also goes upwind effortlessly, and great jumps are available on demand. Relaunch is easy. This is a kite I would hand off to anyone, whereas the EH is like a 50cal. handgun - you give it to your tough-guy friends to test their stones.

I love them both. It is kind of like having two wives...

Jim