Naish Smart Loop 2009: New Part Arrived

I have purchased a 12m 2009 cult and I have never seen any other kite that you can water relaunch it this easy, Pull the bar and its up again.
Kite it self is amazing and 70% of the time when I'm kite surfing every one else are standing with their kites at the beach.

How ever there is a very critical technical fault in its safety release system.

Most of the time I'm using the safety release system for self landing as it is the safest way.
Yesterday the knot between the line and the safety leash got stocked in this tube thing and dragged me for 15m at the shore and it acts like a suicide leash.
I'm so lucky that it was a sandy beach.

Well a very easy way to modify it would be to put a small stopper ball on the underside of the metal T-piece. This would stop the line from as your describing jamming in there whilst still allowing the 'smart' line to pull through the bar in the even of activating it, leaving the stopper ball above the bar.

Edit: You might want to look at the way the connection between the red 'smart' line and the grey line is made. If it has moved or bunched up some of the red line then i can understand there's too much bulk in the metal housing.

How much force does it take to free the red smart line if you grab the metal housing and pull?
You may find that if you've flown the kite to the edge of the wind window whilst self landing then there isn't enough pull on the other front line to release the smart line.
Try activating the safety whilst it's even slightly powered and it should very quickly release. If it doesn't then i'd be talking to your Naish dealer.

Edit 2: You could always try bending the lower section of the metal housing open slightly to give it more room to move.

As an employee of the Naish importer for Australia, I have PM'd Kadkhah in an effort to get to the bottom of this issue.
while it does not appear to be a serial fault of the smart loop as many of you who ride the system can attest, the best piece of advice that can be taken from this is to serve as a reminder for everyone to check their bar and lines every time they rig, especially any moving parts that make up the safety systems of the kite. manually releasing the frontline from the tube Kadkhah has described EVERY time you rig should be a part of every smart loop users checks. This will clear anything that might sieze this piece and make sure that the rest of us wont experience kad's sandy excursion.
so check your lines and keep enjoying the smart loop...
Aidan

Hi Alex,

I think that the new setup is designed to work under max load and not when the kite is at the edge of the window.

The other problem could also be that when you through the bar and then pull the quick release it depowers the kite so much that it won’t flag to one line because it has no power.

I'd suggest that you learn to self land.

Mind posting a photo of the new part so we can compare the before and after?

There has been a change as Alex described. I was the kiter at Leighton Alex was speaking with. He showed me the bar and lines that came with his kite and it appears that Naish have already recognised the potential problem as my kite does not have the grooves cut into the cylinders that each line runs through above the swivel. I will try and upload photos this evening.

Cheers,

Ben.

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