Since I can't copy anything to this forum without it displaying as a blank post, check the details and video out https://www.ginkites.com/shop/spirit

Kite looks awesome but so expensive. I bought one of their first Yetis to arrive in America back in 2011 or something like and it was $850 complete for a 6m. This 6m Spirit is $1475 for the kite only and $2135 complete. A 300% increase in price in less than a decade?!?!?!?

Who can really even afford to enter this hobby anymore? Remember the good ol' days when FBs were about $100 per meter complete and DPs were $150? I'd love to upgrade but don't feel like tapping into my home equity line to support my hobbies.

Ya, it's seems like Gin is serious about developing their foil kite lineup. Information is a little sparse on the kite so far, but there is some talk going on in a French kite forum:
https://www.tubelesskite.net/t10584-gin-spirit?highlight=Gin...

I'm hoping to bring one of the 15m Sprits here to Colorado sometime this winter. I guess the big news on my end is that I reached out to Gin, and will be bringing their kites here to the Rockies. Kites like the Shaman make a lot of sense for the mountain riding we do here in Colorado - probably the closest thing we have in the Continental US that is similar to what they are doing in the Alps; so they were pretty excited to bring them here.

For me, the only Spirit size that makes sense is the 15m, since I am really happy with my 10 and 13 LC Pelicans. Everything I've heard so far is that the Spirit is pretty powerful, so I'm thinking the 15m could make a pretty nice light wind kite.

The sad reality is that the Spirit is actually quite a bit cheaper than other higher-performance foils, like the Flysurfer Soul; about $1000 cheaper than the Ozone Chrono V4.

If anybody is interested in getting a couple of these over stateside, contact me and maybe we can work something out. I love seeing some of these smaller companies throw up some competition to the larger ones; hopefully it will help keep the rising kite prices in check a bit.

Because Gin was small and innovative and less expensive is why I invested in them in the late 2000s. Sadly, they lost distribution and stumbled in the foil market after the Eskimo IV With their kites and bars getting worse and worse for land riding. New kites look like a win. I wish you well and luck bringing them to the Rockies.

Ya, it's too bad that its so expensive to bring kites to market. Companies like HQ and Little Cloud that have tried to lower costs by eliminating advertising struggle to get any recognition; companies that do spend money promoting have to pay for it somewhere, and it shows up in higher prices. So it's a bit of a vicious circle. I guess that's the curse of a low-volume industry.

Gin seems to be striking the balance of being a smaller-ish company that is committed to some promotion; you can tell by the talent they are bringing on board that they are serious and plan on sticking around; I think they are going to make it.

We shall see!

It's a dream to be able to fly a kite like that. I am a paraglider pilot and kite lover and I think it is cool to see the companies that made paragliders entering this factory. Unfortunately the prices have always been very expensive and the only thing that ends up being left are older kites already used. Here in my country my money is worth 6x less than U $ and it becomes impossible to have one of these kites in hand, at least for me, as I am an ordinary worker.

The price is really way over the top..
But it looks really awesome!!

Prices are insane. But the second hand market can be fruitful. I dont need the latest model of any kite that bad. Plenty of PL Aero and Ozone R1v2 to be had for fractions of their price new.

Beautiful kite but I agree with you Broc, kites have become ridiculously expensive. The joys of currency devaluation. It will only get worse in the coming years unfortunately. I'll enjoy having fun with my old kites,,, they still have lots of life left in them.

So I've been getting a little bit of time on the Gin Spirit - definitely need to get more time on it but thought I would share some 1st impressions. I ended up having a pretty fun moonlight session last night on in some light but steady ~8 kt winds. As you might imagine, not a whole lot of pictures from that session, but it was fun and felt like the 1st time where I was really starting to see some of the behaviors of the kite.

I guess maybe I'll start with some pictures and more general design features. The construction is pretty technical with all the bells and whistles of similar kites in this category like the FS Soul - things like leading-edge stiffeners the entire leading edge, spanwise load strips, etc. The inlets are highly formed and made for gulping air as you can see in the pic below. This does lead to a very quick inflation. It uses a velcro deflate valve located on the center trailing edge, and rather than having velcro dirt-outs at the tips, it just has a permanent small exit hole there.




A look at the Inlets:


Deflate Valve:


Tip Dirt Outs



A look at the bar and bridles:


Weight of the 15m Spirit is 2.38 kg which puts in in between 2.17 kg for a 15m Matrixx and 2.45 kg for a 16m Empulse by comparison, and in the lite category, maybe not UL. I don't know the exact materials used in the Spirit, but these weight figures lead me to believe they are using a mix of 20D and 30D fabrics, and that things like LE stiffeners and higher cell count make for the slight extra weight over the ones mentioned.

I'm going to go ahead and base my comparisons to the other closed cell kite I currently have the most experience with, the Little Cloud Pelican 2. While I realize not a ton of people have had a chance to fly either of these kites, I've found myself thinking a lot about their differences and it opens up conversation to much bigger ideas such as performance, what defines a "good" kite, and design intent. Hopefully later on people who have access to other kites such as the Hyperlink, Chrono and Soul can add their perspectives and round out the conversation.

First Impressions: I'll start off by saying expectations for this kite were very high, and it has not let me down. Like all the other kite brands that are descendants of paraglider companies, quality is absolutely top-notch. Handling characteristics too, are excellent. As mentioned, the kite inflates very quickly. It also keeps its shape really well once inflated, and is quite stable. You can get some very slight tip-tucking on a really hard turn, but it pops out quickly once you exit. Bar pressures are pretty light and responsive, just overall a very solid feel, and a kite that makes you feel at home right away, with no weird tendencies.

In really light winds - say sub 6kts - I think other kites like the Pelican, Empulse and Matrixx might do a little better at hanging out and waiting for the next puff of wind. I would contribute this almost entirely to the lighter weight of these kites. The Spirit will do a little more hunting in really light and variable winds, as the cleaner leading edge of the Spirit causes it to surge a bit quicker and this might need to be checked and redirected a bit more proactively if the winds are not steady to avoid an overshoot. But lets face it sub-6kts isn't really useful wind anyway unless you're on a really hard surface, and once winds pick up a bit more, it becomes clear that the Spirit is the more powerful kite out of the set.

There Spirit definitely has some lift - I would say it is most comparable to the HQ Zeekai out of any of the previous kites I've flown. Maybe a little sharper pop with not quite as much glide as the Zeekai. But that kind of makes sense as the Spirit is a 15m and Zeekai I have is is a 16m. The surge, or Pop, is also stronger than probably any other kite I've flown. While I've only had a chance to test in light winds, the lift varies considerably with increases in wind and speed, and I was able to eek out some pretty nice jumps even with only 8-10kts of wind last night. Everything I've seen so far, and everything I'ver heard about the smaller sizes - is that these are going to be Big Air machines. I'm not a great jumper, but it does make it quite effortless. But to consider the Spirit as being a better-handling, more stable version of the Zeekai is a pretty big compliment in my books. The Zeekai has always been one of my favorite kites for light winds - just because it can develop so much lift at low speeds - and now with the Spirit, I think you have a kite that will have a wider range of use for the average rider.

Other characteristics that are standing out: It sits quite far forward in the wind window and I believe it is going to be pretty efficient. In a really tight, powered turn with the bar pulled all the way back, you can choke it - kind of like a muted version of the Gin Shaman3. At that point it will stop pulling asmhard and turn quickly. Once you push the bar forward, it exits with a nice boost of power. The turns do not feel as powered and as carving as say the HQ4 Montana X or LC Pelican (more on this later). Holds air really well, the reverse launch is really easy - all kind of the things you'd expect from a high-end kite.

What's the best kite out there?
So maybe the one thing that stands out most after testing the Spirit and other kites like the Little Cloud Pelican - is this whole question of what makes a good kite, and what makes one better than another. Comparing the Gin Spirit to my experiences with the LC Pelican - one thing became very clear: these are two very capable kites that were designed with two really different sets of goals and objectives in mind. Interestingly, at the surface level it might seem like the kite designs are the same: both are closed-cell, designed to excel at foilboarding as well as snowkiting. But beyond that, there are some definate design goal differences. The Spirit was designed with Big Air clearly being a top criteria - a kite that is going to be massively fun for mountain boarders, freestylers and water fanatics. On the other hand, it's obvious that one of the top design criteria for the Pelican was back-country mountain performance. The result is two markedly different kites, each excellent at what it was designed for.

I'll offer up a couple talking points as kind for what I'm talking about, and the resulting differences in design.

1. Wing curvature
One of Tom Bourdeau's signature design features that is evident in kites such as the Pelican, Empulse and all Montana versions since the M8 - is a pretty radical curvature and C-shape to the planform. The Spirit has a much flatter curve than the Pelican. This gives the Spirit better lift and boosting ability. What the higher C-shape of the Pelican does is make for a quick-turning kite with a more powered, carving-type turn. This becomes important for a kite that is designed to spend a lot of time looping and pulling a person up a mountain. Tight, powered loops are really important on steep slopes where you need lots of power continuously and your available wind window is compressed.

The power these kites produce in the turn ended up being more noticeable than I was expecting. On the Pelican, as you loop the kite the power stays near-constant and you almost get this kind of satellite/slingshot effect. So far the feeling that I've got on the Spirit - at least in lighter winds - is that the power falls off a bit during the turn but builds very nicely on the exit. Any disadvantage in this regard on the Spirit is repurposed as overall improved lift and Pop.


2. To Stiffen or Not to Stiffen
The Gin Spirit has a much more technical leading edge than the LC Pelican, with stiffeners that go the entire span. This creates a really clean leading edge profile. Once the kite decides to grab, it moves very quickly through the wind window, developing lots of lift quickly. This translates into a healthy surge of lift and good Pop - exactly the sort of thing you are looking for in a Big Air kite.

The Pelican on the other hand has no stiffeners. This has been an intentional choice by the designer for years now, and it does a couple of things. First, it makes it really easy to pack the kite away with very little fuss. It makes the kite lighter, smaller, more stuff-able since you don't have to worry about deformation or damage to the battens. The other thing it does is offer some inherent stability and overshoot prevention to the kite. As the kite gets close to the edge of the wind window, it tends to lose a bit of internal pressure and the leading edge deforms a bit. This deformation decreases lift and increases drag - making it harder for the kite to overshoot. All this does of course come at the expense of some Pop performance - but if you are designing a mountain kite, you might be ok with that. In fact, you might actually want that.

I can tell that I am going to really like the Pop and performance of the Spirit; with that said, it is not a kite I see myself taking into the mountains any time soon. Between the nicely formed battens that I am just a little more nervous about warping, and the more agressive lift of the kite - I'm just not sure I'd feel comfortable. Keep in mind this has nothing to do with stability. The Spirit is a very stable kite. In some ways, it may be more stable and rigid than the Pelican. But stability doesn't always equate to comfortability. There is something about the smooth power delivery of the Pelican that leaves me feeling very comfortable in gusts. Even after getting schwacked and having the kite fold up, rarely do I worry about the surge when it re-opens - it just feels really controllable and like it doesn't want to kill you.

But this same agressive power spike on the Spirit is going to be exactly what makes it more desirable for others. While the Pelican has some really nice float, the Spirit is clearly the better boosting kite of the two.


So which is the better kite? The answer is, it really depends on what you are looking for. The perfect person for the LC Pelican is someone who wants a kite that they can use on water, has some fun lift and float, but that also performs really, really well for back-country skin-ins and technical tours. The Spirit on the other hand is going to be great for the person who does mostly Park-and-Ride snowkite riding, and who loves sending it and going big wherever they are - land or water. Both really great kites for slightly different tastes.

Anyhoo - just some first impressions and thoughts - hopefully, that is helpful to someone.

Was able to get the 15m Spirit out for a real nice session in ~8-12kt winds this weekend. Suspicions were confirmed that this kite is going to be a rocket. Power builds quickly, and by 10 - 12 kts there is just oodles of lift. A quick redirect with little-to-no forward speed and you will be sky-high. Really solid, stable feel though, both on and off the ground.

The reality is that this kite is going to quickly eclipse my own jumping abilities. I'm more of a backcountry/touring snowkite with outstanding threats from the Mrs that toys will be taken away if I break any more bones - so I try to keep things conservative. With that said, in the right hands I think this kite is going to be pretty bonkers, especially in the smaller sizes where I imagine the pop is going to be pretty substantial. Its going to make for a really, really fun water kite.

Here's a little footage from the session:

That looked like a super fun session on such a nice looking kite. Great write up! Thanks for taking time to do that. I believe that's the first user perspective I've read / seen.

Thanks B-Roc, yeah definitely agree its a nice looking kite - looks fast just standing still.

fwiw, I circled back to the french forum mentioned above and picked out a couple more nuggets about the kite:

- Uses 32g Domenico fabric, which I think is typically considered 20D.
- The AR for the kite ranges from 5.8 - 6.1, so a little higher than the Soul and Hyperlink (not sure about the Chrono V4).

There was also a recent post from a guy who probably has more time on these kites than anyone - his insights seem to be jiving with what I'm seeing:

Already 4 months of use of the new sail from GIN , the Spirit 12m!
I can now confirm that I love it.

Very versatile use in freeride and freestyle twin-tip, in foil, in snowkite ski and snowboard, in short it adapts to all terrains and supports. For an elongated closed box, it inflates very quickly, it's reassuring and practical.

Flight side: nice regular and fast turn, powerful wing, carries a lot of zenith (top for jumps and slope flights), accelerates hard (fabulous for going fast, but beware of beginners).

Excellent low range (hard to give a number since it depends on the medium, the spot, the program, the pilot ... but for example: better than my Egoist 2 12m and better than my Shaman 3 9m)

High range: same, no number to give but the Spirit stands carefree.


He posted a video as well, if you care to see someone with actual talent: