Forums > Kitesurfing General

Interesting single skin kite

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Created by SaveTheWhales > 9 months ago, 16 Apr 2017
SaveTheWhales
WA, 1877 posts
16 Apr 2017 12:33PM
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KiteBud
WA, 1553 posts
16 Apr 2017 12:57PM
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No doubt there are some improvements made over other single skin kites I've flown / seen.

IMO These kites are mostly useful for long distances land expeditions (buggy, snow kiting) where kite weight and packing size are important. You can carry as many as 4 sizes of these with the same weight and packing size as a single inflatable kite!

Other than that, they don't perform so well under strong load, heavy gusts, etc. Not to mention they are very fragile due to the light materials they are built with.

To properly test these kites they should put a heavy guy on a TT in 20 to 30 knots winds, they you'll see how it really performs.

The videos from the guys at Kitefinder could be more thorough, kites should always be tested in a variety of conditions/situations before giving some feedback.

Christian

Plummet
4862 posts
16 Apr 2017 5:14PM
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So its half single skin and half closed cel?

Interesting.

SaveTheWhales
WA, 1877 posts
16 Apr 2017 5:29PM
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Id say he is aiming at the light wind foil board market...

NorthernKitesAUS
QLD, 1073 posts
17 Apr 2017 8:16AM
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Why are we reinventing the wheel? Flysurfer Peak, NASA wings, Peter Lynn Uniq, and others have surprised and surpassed all tests. Besides kiteboarders want performance and safety out in the water. Who cares whether it's single,dual or LEI? I just want a kite that works and obviously there are currently plenty that do.

Underoath
QLD, 2433 posts
17 Apr 2017 8:59AM
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3.16

Chem-trails.

daddycool
WA, 337 posts
17 Apr 2017 8:42AM
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Ultimate travel quiver: 10m + 17m of these beauties with carbon bars, stubby foil board with dismantleable foil - light and compact! Could throw in a tt and still be under 20kg. Test for foil will be up wind capability imo

cauncy
WA, 8407 posts
17 Apr 2017 7:40PM
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I've seen some boring stuff
but that had me in a state of hibernation

Rovert
QLD, 68 posts
18 Apr 2017 3:49PM
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This hybrid aim to get the benefits of single skin to be safe on water seems commendable. I've been messing around with SS kites for a while. They have a lot of advantages - water relaunch not being one of them. My main interest is for kite boating. To this end, their scalability and rapid inflation (which term seems a bit odd for a single skin), which provides some good launch possibilities, are big (potential) advantages.

Christian, I'd not discount their strength or pulling power. Here is some video (

) of a 12m SS kite pulling a 130kg catamaran (Nacra 5.8 ) with a payload of about 280kg. This was about a year ago and things have progressed quite a lot since then (both in terms of SS kites and my particular boat development - the latter is now foiling). Also I wouldn't discount their strength - I don't think "...they are very fragile due to the light materials they are built with..." is necessarily accurate. 12m is about half the normal sail area of a Nacra 5.8 and we had quite a bit more payload than the normal crew of 2. We were doing about wind speed when reaching in 15knots and upwind wasn't too shabby.



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"Interesting single skin kite" started by SaveTheWhales