$3101 for a 12m incl. Bar..... pbk managed to jump as high as 18m+ with the lotus, curious whether The Speed 5 can go higher, the price definitely is
The 6m just got announced overnight. I've got a 6 in the S4 and it's a wicked little thing :). I reckon the higher AR of the S5 would amp it up even more...
Just had another great session on the Speed 5 12. It was like 13 gusting 15 knots, guys on 17's and 18's doing the walk to shame with their sectors and TT's. I was messing about trying foiling back rolls and getting crazy hang time with my 12m and KFA Mako. Heaps of fun, was pretty much jump it, crash it, flip it, relaunch it & go again. Speed V = PlayStation 4
So theoretically, how fast could one of these Speed 5's go on water? Take ability of the kiter and equipment out of the equation.....50Knts+?
Hi James, here comes an explanation....it's a longish one.
It wasn't a straight forward question really so I'll go a little deeper into why I asked. A little background first....I have a very limited snowkite background and have spent time using Ozone kites (Access, Frenzy) and Conceptair Smartkite. I spent a day a few years back on a small (4.5m Conceptair)) kite racing along in moderate wind (15-20Knts) on a snowboard and couldn't believe how little wind I needed to travel so fast.
I didn't have a GPS logging speed and I won't hazard a guess at how quick I was traveling but realised the potential differences between friction on water vs snow. I don't have an extensive knowledge of kite design but wondered if the guys going for records are limited by the kite in any way. eg, does the kite buckle or fold at speed? Are race foils (I know the Speed 5 isn't a race kite) capable of doing the types of speed we see for current water speed records?
This brings me to my next question, and again a little background info. I spent many years (30) water skiing, wakeboarding etc and spent a good 10 years racing. The time spent behind boats at 80+mph has me curious as to how quick someone could go on a proper race ski. My take is that it would be more difficult in some respects due to the directional force at a reach but theorised that if you could bear off downwind a few more degrees, then there would be significantly less drag/friction and working against the kite.
This could possibly mean that you would need a slightly larger kite or more wind than current record holders....I'm not sure. I figured that very few people would have this type of intro into kiting and wondered if it was possible. Thinking out loud..
As for why I asked about the speed 5....I'm still grinding away and hopefully I'll be contacting you about a purchase at some point, I thought it would be an all round kite/s for use in the backcountry and on water. No use me going out and buying a race kite that would do very little for me at this point, and was simply curious about the potential for going fast on the Speed even if it simply gaining more experience.
Appreciate the info mate, Cheers.