Ocean Rodeo News:
Ross Harrington about R&D at Ocean Rodeo
Ocean Rodeo’s Ross Harrington has an IMPRESSIVE R&D CV dating back many years. Since his time at OR, the Razor has been the ‘powerhouse’ in the range. With an enviable rep and a dedicated patronage, we asked Ross to talk us through it…
> Can you tell us a bit about the philosophy behind the Razor?
The Razor evolved from our Diablo C kite which we’d sold for years. In fact, in the 1st year of the Razor (2011) we labelled it a “C SLE” kite. It was (and still is) designed for riders who look for a C kite feel with SLE wind range / depower. When designing it I worked to keep it as close to a C kite as possible, meaning I worked to make it highly reactive, very responsive to bar input – almost twitchy, but in a good way. It is our Freestyle kite, our big air machine.
> It features some proprietary technology such as FST (Forward Swept Wing Technology). What do they do that wingtips without the FST treatment don’t?
Larger wingtips give more leverage for faster turns and offer greater sheeting range for more depower. The FST design allows me to only adjust the wingtip size without changing the other parameters of the kite (bridle attachment points or overall platform of the kite). I also think there’s an argument that the design helps reduce wingtip vortices but without access to a wind tunnel it’s hard to say definitively. What is definitive is that when we tested otherwise identical kites back-to-back 100% of riders preferred the model with FST vs the one without.
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> What else makes the Razor fly the way it does?
The newest generation of Razor has a lot of built in angle of attack, otherwise called coning. This makes it a very powerful kite for its size and very reactive to bar input. The vents (1st introduced in 2008 on the Rise) help offset some of the negatives coning usually introduces and allow the kite to continue to fly forward at a high angle of attack.
> Building unique functional features into products is not something that’s new to you, can you tell us about some things you introduced to windsurfing sails?
I’ve been designing and building wings all my life. First with hang gliders, then windsurf sails and now kites. Through it all I have tried to borrow technologies or techniques already in use outside the discipline. Hang glider design and innovation heavily influenced my thought process on windsurf sail design and I continue to look to incorporate outside ideas on my kite designs today, the vented kite is a good example.
In the early 80s I was the 1st to introduce a full baton square headed windsurf sail. Around the same time I was also the first to make use of a drop tack. This is the area of the sail that extends below the tack grommet and helps close the gap between the sail and the board. I was also the first to make the boom shorter than the clue length, which allowed for greater sheeting range and freed up the leach of the sail.
“ I want to know we are selling the best possible product at all times ”
> If the Razor embodies any of Ocean Rodeo’s broader design missions, or carries any of its DNA, what would you say they would be?
Durability is a core value for Ocean Rodeo. As is maximising power per square m.
> How do you know when it’s time to bring a new incarnation of an existing product to market?
Some companies innovate and then save those innovations for scheduled product roll outs, bleeding out their changes to maximise the dollars earned per change. When I develop something that outperforms what we have already, it’s time to make the change. I want to know we are selling the best possible product at all times.
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> In the design process of a new kite, how many prototypes do you get through before the finished product is ready?
I’ve never understood the companies who brag about 100’s of prototypes made. It’s like they are admitting they don’t know what their changes will affect in the kites or boards they are designing. I strive for the fewest possible but I typically cover the kite in potential bridle attachment points to give me ultimate flexibility when fine tuning the bridle. I also take a constructive approach to kite design. I identify my design goals and I look for existing kite designs that display some of these characteristics. I then modify that existing design to enhance those aspects I am targeting. Sometimes if I’m unsure of how one change will affect another I will make 2 kites, one with and one without a certain change so I can compare. Typically, I will have the final product quite quickly once I know exactly what we are looking to build and what we want it to feel like.
> Do you consider feedback from riders outside of OR when you design a kite?
All the time. In fact, to me it is some of the most valuable feedback as these are the people who are paying for the experience of using the kite. They are the most invested in the experience and they are the ones who need to be further convinced that I am making a kite that honours their investment. It’s also a practical thing, we can’t possibly test locally for all riding styles, conditions and body weights. We have to listen to our customer’s feedback or we’d miss things that are obvious to riders in one area of the world and which have no bearing on our riding conditions. In fact, I even asked the web design guys to include a “notes for R&D” section on our Session Log on our website so that customers tracking their sessions on our gear can provide me with direct feedback.
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> Tell us a little bit about the Ocean Rodeo testing ground.
We are lucky enough to live in an area that is quite windy. However, our beaches are small, our water is cold and our shorelines are rocky – not unlike a lot of the UK and northern Europe! This forced us, from day 1, to make gear that performs in these harsh conditions. We enjoy a reputation as one of the best built, most durable kites on the market, it’s a requirement for kiting where we do it and it’s served us well in an industry where most other brands are testing on a soft and sandy beach.
> When was Ocean Rodeo started? What was the impetus? And do you still have the first kitesurfing kite you built?
Ocean Rodeo was officially founded in 2001. Richard and I had been kicking around some homemade designs since 1999 though. I was asked, and turned down the opportunity, to design kites for North and settled on starting the local based brand with Richard around mid-2000. I do still have my first kite too, it’s still alive today because I made the leading edge with Dacron, unlike every other kite of the time which used Mylar.
> Finally, talk us through a perfect day on and off the water in Victoria.
For me, after all these years? Nothing beats a warm day up the coast with wind and good surf…
http://www.kitesurf-magazine.co.uk/ross ... owdown-88/