I will try not to gush but wont promise anything. It is so hard not to. Hookworms proposal of marriage is understandable - this kite is just sooooo easy to live with. I truly love mine too. (sorry gushing already - see).
COMFORT
No.1 of all the advantages (IMO) is the ease of flying. If you are no longer an olympic athlete and looking to get as much time-on-water as possible then the Rev is 'IT'. I have had a couple of 4hr sessions now & still come in pain & ache free. You just dont get tired flying this kite despite its size.
This may be because the power delivery from the kite is so super smooth. Gusts hit as gradual increase in power down at the water end; and; using your throw delivers an equally smooth increase or decrease in power. Lovely 
No jerking yourself off on this kite 
BAR PRESSURE/CONTROL
Bar pressure is truly minimal. You can hold power on with two fingers. I deliberately tested it yesterday by carving upwind as hard as possible one handed. I just kept going; for literally 100's of metres; till my back leg started to complain from all the pushing 
. And its low pressure at no cost. I have never understood the 'low bar pressure with good feel for kite position' story. I still dont understand it but the 13M Rev certainly does deliver it???? Right from the start I had no problem knowing where the kite was pretty much all the time. (dont always like where i put it 
but at least I know where it it is)
LIFT
Lift is amazing. I now know what they mean when they say 'it rips you off the water'. I have now officially been ripped . I am still not much of a jumper (yet - though that is about to change very quickly with this kite) but already the floaty airtime has had me spotting my landing several times in the one boost. Now that's a fun experience
STABILITY
Amazing - this kite just parks and pulls. Just for fun the other day I set the stopper ball onto cruise control and just laid back, no hands, for the full length of half a dozen tacks in a row. (I even did a few little no-hands-load'n'pops and only crashed twice trying ). Flys like a guide dog. 
I suspect it will be a big hit with the wave riders.
RANGE
For me - a lowly skilled 70kgs on a 137TT in sloppy choppy water.
Holding ground at 11kts quite comfortably but it needs about 13kts to really give me any freedom to play. NB I never kite the flatside until Im upwind in the slop (snm) but Im pretty sure I would be upwind at about 11kts in flat water?
BAR SETUP
OMG - you just have to see it to believe it. SS have always been super smart with bar setups but they have truly excelled themselves this time round. Everything below the bar, everything free spinning inc the 100% emergency depower. If this is not the cleanest, neatest, most effective, useful bar setup on the market I havent seen the one that is !!
DOWNSIDES
Truly nothing yet. Little niggle (if u must) though. I have noticed that it does not want to point upwind as tight as my old TD1. I am finding that it might take 2 upwind tacks to get up as far as 1 tack might have on my turbo ?? This is a bit odd as the Rev appears to be a higher aspect kite than the turbo ??? very strange - maybe its just me 
or maybe its just a low end phenomenon as I havent really flown my new kite in any decent wind yet
Cant wait for the arrival of my 9M. NB: I ordered one the first day I rode the 13M. I will post a review of that too asap.
Hope it makes me smile as much as this one did does IS Its gonna be a great season.
ps 10M TD1 for sale in the bought & sold
Great review puppet, a mate demoed the 11m rev yesterday during a lull of about 10-12 knots, he's about 70kg and was on a flx28, he easilly cruised upwind both tacks. He's a sb1/sb2 stalwart looking for a change, pretty amazing for his first go on the Rev11. Would you have same bottom end on an Rev11?? Others have compared the Rev11 in physical size as same as the Link12 but heaps better performance. cheers
Yeah, good review, & funny.
Careful. RSPCA are cracking down on flying "guide dogs".
I've had my 9m almost 3 weeks now.It's had loads of use. I'm sure once you get used to it you'll be rocketing up wind, you've got to sheet out a bit to get the best upwind.
Slingshot have paid so much attention to trimming weight,but not lost on stability of the structure. But they have gone to super heavy front lines, presumably because the safety is on one of these, with the added bonus of reducing front line stretch. If you take note of which is your safety line & self land with it as the upper wing it'll land & sit there ready to self relaunch. It's so good!
Has anyone hd any problems with the inflation valves bleeding? I got my new kite yesterday and pumped it up but after a couple of hours it was half flat??? I came back in and pumped it up but after another hour it was getting a bit soft again. I though some of it might be because the kite was brand spanking new. I noticed Slingy have developed a new valve cap holder but I could not get it to fit over the valve head due to the velcro on the valve stem?
Would appreciate any help with this or perhaps a photo of the corect way to put it on.
Cheers
Southy
quote:
Originally posted by Southpoint
Has anyone hd any problems with the inflation valves bleeding? I got my new kite yesterday and pumped it up but after a couple of hours it was half flat??? I came back in and pumped it up but after another hour it was getting a bit soft again. I though some of it might be because the kite was brand spanking new. I noticed Slingy have developed a new valve cap holder but I could not get it to fit over the valve head due to the velcro on the valve stem?
Would appreciate any help with this or perhaps a photo of the corect way to put it on.
Cheers
Southy
I couldn't imagine the valves leaking, they're pretty firm.I'd try locating which bladder is the problem first but sounds like a warranty job to me. The inflation valve clip is perhaps overkill? & had me thinking for quite a while also, even with the pictures/instructions.
After inflation valve is closed & velcro fastened the 'C' part of the clip snaps over the stem, from the side. This means the top part slides over the plug ensuring it can't pop out. hmmm . Does that help?
what do you think the top end of this kite is. I have had a link 12m and have been comfortable in 20- 25knots, although with the link the power delivery was not very smooth in the upper end and when depowered seemed to luft or jerk when flying to the edge of the window in the gusts. Has anyone had the 13m rev in 20-25.
It would be nice to be able to fly the rev in 16 - 25 knot range.
Hey wintersun
I havent worked at the top end yet. All sessions except part of one have been low end ie with the kite trimmed fully out. That one session (my 3rd I think) the breeze did build & I ended it with my front lines trimmed in about 100mm (ie 100mm of trim loop rope protruding from the back of the cleat). I was surprised to read the graphs when I got home registering average of 18>20kts.
My guessing from that is, it should be OK to at least 25kts. But with SS's cleated rope system of trimming the kite you really dont know till you get higher wind just how much trimming in you can give it before it reaches the misbehaving point.
For what its worth ? The pleasantly workable trim-length range on my 10M TD (which is for sale btw ) was from about 50mm; any less = too much bar pressure (imo); to about 200/250mm; anymore = likely to not do what it was told. The Rev definately starts with zero trim required at the bottom end.
I've had my 13 rev out in gusty winds of up to 25 knots with no problems, I didn't feel out of control or at the limits of the kite at all, as I think I may of on my 13 fuel. I had my kite up standing on the beach when a 30 knot gust came through still no problems, I reckon if I was on the water I could have riden safely back to shore to put my kite down.
Hhhhmmmmmmm cant edit old posts anymore
Anyhow just want to apologise for splitting the REV reviews into 2 threads.
My bad - sorry.
Putting my 9M REView on the main thread soon (its hard to find the words ).
see: www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=30808
its a great big pulling machine that makes you think the lines are only 20m as its so big yet flying like a small kite. definitely the light wind choice, having said that the bar is wonderfully light and it has decent pull unhooked at the same time. its also got good hang time, i went for a transition and ended up kooking it out because i wasnt expecting to be in the air so long, result kicking about in the air to keep the board bellow me.
if your in need of a lighter wind kite its definitely a powerful contender. the 9m i flew in the same conditions was out performing many of the bigger kites out but on efficiency, the 13 gives grunt and efficiency.
POAS: to get better upwind dont pull the bar in so much, i was getting a bit disappointed at the prospect of walking back up wind until i worked it out.
yeah you sheet th bar out that little bit and it trucks upo wind real easy.. :-)
i was thinking of getting an 08 ss rev, but im not sure what size i should get, currently i ride my 13m 06 fuel in anything from 18 to about 30, should i get a 11m or 13m, I was thinking maybe to 11m because of when i unhooked and its a smaller kite to loop. any thoughts cheers
thanks fozzy, whats the hang time with the 11m, i was thinking the 11 because of unhooking and loops, but i still wanna go high ever now and then, and didnt want to lack the power
Hang time is what I'd call 'typical' of the hybrids. You don't quite get the height of a C kite but definitely remain up there that bit longer.
I'd say that the Rev actually boosts higher than a C kite. Plus the hangtime is shyte loads more than a C kite.
I owned a Raven before getting the Rev, and I reckon it boosts higher than the old jumping legend. The hangtime reminds me of the old naish ARX (high aspect C kite back in 2002) You just seem to float forever. I love it!!
What puts a smile on my face is the Rev's forgiving nature when up in the air. With the shorter lines and higher aspect ratio, you will struggle to fudge up a jump and fall from the sky. (That was my speciallty with the raven i.e. do the old pendulum swing or accidentially fly the raven out of the window and fall out of the sky)
Longer lines would make the rev jump higher tho.
P.S. I forgot to put that clip over the inflation valve the other week, and it does pop out on a big bomb. I wont be forgetting that again!
anyone put sexwax or something on the depower line, seems to stick a little on mine when the bar isnt straight , on a turn for example.
any ideas to smooth this up a little? cheers
Cwamit,
Don't put sexwax on it. Obviously that is used for grip and will have the opposite effect of what you're trying to do. Also it will attract every grain of sand within a km radius. I don't use anything but if you want to give something a go I would maybe look at candle wax. Just rubbing the candle on it by the way, not dripping the hot wax over it.
Is anyone having problems with the Rev's bridle? I'll try to post a picture of whats going on soon but for now I'll try to explain it....
The white line of the bridle that passes through the pulley attatched to the kite's wingtip has become twisted. It is not fraying or wearing but looks like it has twisted up. however it cannot twist up so has me starting to wonder if that pulley is not as free spinning as it should be?
I'll try to get some pictures soon. This has not effected the kites performance or feel in anyway, it just looks dodgy.
On another note, has anyone tried to unflatten the 'thin' kite lines. The two centre 'fat' line are roundish, however the outside lines are as flat as pancakes. This makes the lines vibrate (resonate for the engineers out there) when wind blows above about 15knts. Again, this does not effect the flying of the kite, it is just anoying.
I finally got the pictures uploaded. Dont take any notice of the date taken. I havent worked out how to remove that from my camera. Since I noticed the bridle line twisting, I have noticed that both the red and white lines are doing it now. I have also found a small part of the LE stitching come undone.
Slingshot are reviewing this complaint as we speek. I suspect the stitching was simply a baby defect from the chinese manufacturing plant. I will be interested to see what SS say about the bridle lines. I havent seen any kite do this yet and I am the only one in Whyalla that owns the Rev.
This was the 9m rev.
I haven't had the bridles twisting but had to replace part of the bridle and pulleys on the kite due to sand jamming them up. This was mainly my fault, but in my opinion remove those covers over the pulleys as they retain a hell of alot of sand, which I didn't notice until it was to late. Beside that, the rev is a great kite and I love it.
OK guys, The bridal line will twist up if your pulley gets sand in and jams up..
So just give it a little care.
Note if your bridal line does twist it will shorten and your kite will not fly as well.
Yes you can get new bridal lines just for your pulley sections and pulleys as well..
Take care and have fun riding :-)
