Hello to all, I am contemplating using an old 'spinnaker' from a boat I once owned, (60 square meters or so). to build a powerkite over the coming months or longer. What designs would you guys go for? ( presuming that copyright laws are not broken) I would want to use it for buggying, or maybe kitesurfing if I could construct an inflatable kite. Any Ideas? Anyone tried this? or should I forget the kite, and build myself a paracute....
Mongo

I'd buy a surf kite and make yourself some NASA wings to buggy with.

I believe Kitemaker has some idea how to do this.

Andrew Beatie in the UK used to have a collection of kite plans for commerical kites on his website, but looks like none of the links are working anymore:

http://www.kites.tug.com/

I believe most of the plans on his site came from other places on the internet, so you may be able to track down the plans for what you're looking for with a bit of Googling.

Or email Andrew (I think his email is on his site) and ask if can point you in the right direction. Andrew was building his own kites back in the late 90s, a 2 line power kite called the Chevron which was actually pretty awesome.

Thanks guys,, I have already seen (somewhere) plans for the NASA wing, so that might be the one. I think I need to walk properly before I can run, and learn to kly the one kite I have first.
I see you are from Vancouver B.C. Pablo, I will be visiting my sister who lives in Victoria, soon. I will be bringing my kite, so any help with places to go would be marvelous. Thanks again for the advice
Mongo

Check out BIGWAVEDAVE.com for the best local forum in the Victoria / Van. Island area.

If you are in Vancouver we have a pretty regular crowd that head out. Keep in touch !

Mongo -

If and when you do decide to venture into making your own kites, here's the forum to look at for foil design and construction:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Foildesign/

The Wingine site has a lot of construction notes and foil plans they've released for amateur construction:

http://www.wingine.nl/

Look at the Junkie and Gual links there. One of the principles, Emiel, is a frequent poster to the Foildesign forum. The Tribal is another "open source" foil - high aspect. You'll need to run the site through Google translator:

http://home.wanadoo.nl/xxtreme/subpagina's/frameset.html

And a whole bunch of sites on NPW's and variations:

http://freedom2000.free.fr/NPW_index_eng.html
http://www.xs4all.nl/~pdj/nasaplan.htm
http://members.cox.net/npwbill/NPWBill.htm
http://members.shaw.ca/kiteman/index.htm
http://users.pandora.be/claeskites/index.html
http://users.pandora.be/claeskites/index.html

Andrew McLean is a hard-core ski mountaineer/chute skier who has put together great instructions for assembling NPW5's:

http://www.pawprince.com/pawprince/design/kites/construct/ho...

I have never sewn an NPW. I have flown a couple NPW 5's and have skied behind a 5m NPW9. I thought the 9 had a wider window and was less prone to nose collapse. Sure didn't take much wind to get it in the air. Had more, constant pressure on the brakes than my foils because the center of pressure is pretty far back on the wing. Sure would be quick and cheap to sew as compared to a foil.

krumly

Krumly posted some great links to follow..

Your spinnaker material might be a little heavy for some foils, but still worth practicing with. "Seconds" for coated ripstop are available pretty cheap from various sources. I used 3/4 oz for all of mine.

Surfplan is the best for printing kite plans... http://www.surfplan.com.au/sp/

I've made three different sizes of the Guals, and am almost done with a Tribal... along with a handful of other single line kites. I like to fly a big red flowform with a red tail... that way even when I'm riding up and down the beach, I can still spot where I'm parked at