I was out today on the 12m Chrono V1. 9-12 knots pretty powdered up.
I was laying down some pretty sweet canted angles cranking upwind. So I decided to find out if I could do a back drag on the water without falling off.
Turns out I can. It's pretty darn cool too. Foil on an almost Horizontal angle, Almost half the wing our of the water hooning along back touching down occasionally.
Then something surreal happened. As I was heeled right over attempting the back drag. I start hooning upwind at an even more stupid angle. An angle that was ridiculous to believe.
Wind was cross on to the beach and i was tacking back towards the beach heeling upwind and was actually traveling away from the beach out to sea. I'm used to hydrofoil angles. But this was another level of stupid.
Maybe it was another level of efficiency because half of the wing was occasionally out of the water? I don't know why but dang is was cool indeed.
Thoughts? postulations?
Oh yeah, if you havent layed down a back drag yet. There is a challenge for you!
What do you mean by back drag ?
If you were at an angle beyond "common tight" upwind angle i see two possible explanations :
- your inertia : with enough inertia you can keep tension your lines by crancking upwind harder and harder (your kite acting more in paraglider mode)
- local/punctual change of wind direction.
Just my thought , but maybe I misunderstood your configuration of backdrag.
I would think so - but we dont know what it is either?
When I read the words I thought it was local slang for "Yelling out loud of joy", just like we do when suddenly succeeding with something difficult on the water.
But when googling you get as said, used by car racers driving recklessly, or general abuse, or for a pimp, or for having sex, or for vomiting all over