Goodnight Sweet Prince

So, as most of you know (from my endless posts about it lol), Nebraska has some crazy weather. smooth wind is a non existant thing here. It is not uncommon to have gusts doubling the wind speed, from 30 degrees off the current wind direction.... makes for interesting kiting.

So yesterday... wind is kickin.... 25mph is what reads on the websites. Depending on which one you looked at gusts were anywhere from 35-45+. I took some time to gauge it for myself, and to me, the gusts seemed pretty constant, and not too choppy, so i said hey 35, thats Apex weather!

My Apex is a low-lift, newbie friendly, 5m depowerable foil... lol lets rock!

I get out there, and set up and the wind just keeps pounding harder and harder. Well its been a while since my last kite fix, im going buggying! Launch and off i go! My low-lift kite was now lit up like it never has been. 5' jumps are a little too easy, and i begin to pucker lmao!

Dead grass, and partially frozen ground made for some rediculous speed runs! All with the kite, barely moved from the zenith... winds were getting stronger.... at one point i tried to stop and collect myself.... tried.... i was pointed almost completely upwind, with the kite at the far edge of the window, high up, and all i could do was slide, completely sideways, at the mercy of the kite!

a couple of passes later i decided it was getting a little too nuts... nearing the limit of safe flying . i couldnt park the kite anywhere without tearing off in the bug, or getting a 5' loft. Now comes a new trick for you... i call it the two point shot (maybe a teabag now that i think about it)... while traveling in a buggy, you experience the joy of an OBE, a few feet up and out, then some how land back in the bug :shocked2:

Yeah, it was that kind of day...


Long-as-hell story short... my kite now has an 8" tear in the middle of it. I didnt crash it a single time... just too much wind and the kite just couldnt stay together. Reports were wind gusts topping 50mph

:wee:

So, what have we learned?

Apex III 5m top end: ~50mph
2' loft out of buggy, and sat back down: 2 point shot/teabag

Now the questions,
Where should i send my apex, and why wont my helmet cam connect to my pc... yes there is video, but no i cant get to it (its a tachyon microHD)

Thanks for reading lol... all in all it was a fun day... just a little nuts

Ive taken my 10m syn out in slightly lower winds and it did fine.... My bar was too big, so I did some unintentional kiteloops, and had a safety malfunction that sent the kite into a deathspin and snapped a line (bad day)

But the twinskin handled the epic winds without trouble... The dutchies take their chargers out in crazy high wind... Ive heard rumors of the 8m out in 55 knots

The anchor points on the kite are stronger on the twinskins than on any foil... and thats where my apex ripped, between b and c bridals (i think)

Thanks for the input everyone!

U need to buy my 2.5 Rage (and add a AAA bridle adjuster) for those days!

Quote:

Originally posted by martinipro I've always wondered about this. I imagine the bridles put a lot of strain on the sail. Would you expect an arc to withstand more wind since all the load is taken by the straps/pigtails?

thats for sure! the straps act like vectorbands in paragliders: they distribute the load over the whole canopy. bridled foil kites usually dont have vector bands. they dont even have alot reinforcements at the bridle attachement tabs. so its really no wonder that you can rip them in heavy conditions.. (i had a look into my old hq apex 1: the attachement point reinforcements are just made from some sort of ripstop-duct-tape and already start to peel off. would be much better if they were sewed to the ribs.. )

here you can see a vector band running across the whole span of the glider:

http://extremeppg.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/enigma-comp...

The good part of the vid didnt show up... Starting out, and the last pics of my intact kite are tho. And me chasing after my kite bag lol.

Ill slap a rough cut up tonite, dont get your hopes up tho

Mad man