Ok guys
Today I drove for 90 miles to get to a sea lagoon filled from the famous Menai straights with the fastest tidal flow in the uk,
The mission- to test a Moses front wing against a G10 Gong front wing as above posts.
Weather was "ice road truckers"
Snow, hailstones, hazard flashers, recovery trucks, police, sleet, rain with hard bits, flashing lights, stress, wife shouting eeek.
Anyways,after over 2 hours of hell we got there.
First up was the Moses 548 repaired wing, kite size 8 mtr, whohoo! It was talking to me, smooth, quick lift and normal service was resumed, hit a sandbar so hard I flew like superman.
Recovered, and walked for 50 yards to find the deep stuff,
Sailed back to to shore and fitted the gong wing.
After a few nervous moments I was up, however it was not as easy to get up as the Moses wing, no where as easy.
But once there the ride was so smooth, smooth as butter, and it felt fast, but so different, so different it made me nervous, how would it react to a turn ?
I was up at the height limit and it would not lower for the turn, slowed down and it remained high, slowed down to almost a stop and it stayed high and stable, yikes!
My brain could not understand what was happening,
Then dive dive, must have been going at 4 knots at full mast hight before it lost grip.
Tried and tried for many more runs but could not get my head round the difference, enjoyed the butter smooth fast runs, fast upwind runs, but the turns were from another planet. I tried so hard to lower the ride height before entering the turn, but even at near a zero speed I was to high to even think about looping the kite into a turn.
I ran into a sand bank at full speed twice, no shallow water white crests to warn me, or colour changes.just kerboom.
After a while the cold 3c conditions and a fast outgoing tide forced me to return to shore,
Verdict
It worked, not a scratch from the two fast sand bar encounters, so so different to use, and I will need to practice on the gong wing to understand the differences, the fast and ever so smooth straight line speed was breathtaking, but the turns were a nightmare, so much to learn, and the conditions were severe, icy cold, gusts from 12 knots to over 25 and more, fully sheeted out at times and holding my breath and praying for a lull,then bearing off downwind and working the kite like a madman looking for wind,
crazy winter conditions!
The best bit?
The hot flask of milky sweet coffee, handed to me after I came off the water, and the hot car that Pauline had kept on the boil whist I was out there.