Power Kite Forum

rediscovered: the "best Hellfish" - a single skin arc with tiny tubes.

herc - 1-5-2010 at 02:56 AM

http://www.ikiteboarding.com/kiteboarding/articles/best-hell...

Quote:

The Best HellFish is Best Kiteboarding's new flagship kite. Best Kiteboarding claims that the HellFish dramatically improves upon currently available kite designs in all aspects because of Best's exclusive use of Cuben Fiber. Cuben Fiber is a cloth that has recently been used in sailing. It is a very light material that is made up of a combination of different Fibers. The exact combination of Fibers is not known. The result is a very light, strong and waterproof cloth that has a shiny, wrinkly texture.


video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7AgdgdAMH4&feature=relat...
(at the end you can see that it behaves somehow like a arc kite - the leading edge folds into taco while landing. )







[img]http://www.ikiteboarding.com/editarticle/uploads/images/
besthellfish/best-hellfish5.jpg[/img]

Bladerunner - 1-5-2010 at 07:26 AM

The Hellfish came out the year before the Waroo and was over-hyped. They didn't stand up and got dropped that same year. It looked to me like Best had lost it but the Waroo changed that. I think these are more of a collectors item than a breakthrough. Good luck finding one.

herc - 1-5-2010 at 01:10 PM

it was reviewed as beeing extremely lightweight. that special cuben fiber was something interesting.

i still wonder if one can built a PL-arc - alike tubekite.
*single skin
*very high aspect ratio

if one removes all but the leading edge strut, and add straps similiar to those internal straps of PL arcs and make the leading edge tube even thinner.. somehow like the naiboo morphine.. could be the light-wind arc i am dreaming of.

remembers me of a dream i had last night: was helping someone at the beach that bought a used pl phantom. showed him how to prefill the arc and how to launch. the interesting thing was: the phantom felt filled hard, like an air mattress. really hard filled, stable profile.

woke up and thought about a kite concept where you inflate a veery high aspect ratio profile. something like a single tube, but with an airfoil profile. why not? find a way to construct a bladder that itself has the shape of an airfoil... surround it by protective ripstop.. voila - the inflatable arc that does not loose air and does not need air inlets would be born.