Sneaked out of work :D at 10:15am and hit the lake ... forecast said the wind would die off this afternoon so I thought I'd make the most of it while I could ...

Was a good blow out there, too much for the Crossbow 16 so thought I'd give a Synergy a run ... decided to go with the 19m cos the wind was forecast to drop off.

Started with a kitemare - Bowtie City. Recovered several times but the kite just wouldn't come out of the wing-tips together configuration and fly properly. Eventually, it twisted several times and I landed it and sorted it properly. Trimmed some depower in and launched fine. Doh :ticking:

Had a pretty good 2.5 hours on the lake, mostly powered but had to work the kite a bit too which took some finessing that I'm not used to :D guess the arc is more like a C-kite huh?!

Did some jumps; a few great ones but most were crappy. Saw the potential of sending the kite properly when I got a bit over-enthusiastic and went soaring ... pity I couldn't land it!

Dropped the kite only once - let go the bar and as my head broke the water, I saw the kite rush to the edge of the windows, drop onto the water, clap it's tips together then literally bounce straight back up into the air! Neat-o!

Worked through lulls ok and survived big gusts, edging hard to force the kite upwind or just riding off downwind.

Good day, glad I skivved off more detail on the blog if you can be bothered ...

that sounds like a good day kami. there's nothing like bailing out of work to hit up your local spot

Sounds awesome Kami. Hooky from work sounds like so much fun!!! Question, you have a synergy 19m and a flysurfer 19m right???? Big difference between the two??? Flysurfer is better if the wind is lighter right??

Getting paid while kitesurfing ... hey does that mean I'm sponsored

Yeah, massive difference between the two!

For a start, the projected area is totally different - the arc is much smaller due to it's more C like shape while the FS is much flatter so more sail is exposed to the wind - the FS is so good in light wind, I'd say I can ride from about 8 knots all the way to about 18 ... the arc (or rather, I driving the arc) makes much less power and yesterday was 20 knots easy and it was fine.
Flying them, the Speed is a park in the wind and go, it's that easy - if you lose board speed, sheet in and point the board downwind more and away you go. The Synergy needs to be worked more and a much lighter hand on the bar otherwise you can choke it. They both have massive bar pressure if you try to whale on the bar like an LEI but if you finesse them like a foil, they fly real nice and aren't so much work.

Depends what you want - the arc is super-stable if you don't mind working it or riding fast, it's awesome. The Speed is a bit more twitchy when you get out of shape (may be the state of tune mine is in) but for wind range, there's nothing comparable.

Oh man who beat me with the Stick of Pain yesterday? Sore all over and to cap it off, I got sunburned real good too ... some part of my brain where the retard lives convinced the rest of it that people would notice the sunscreen and wonder where I'd been for the past 4 hours so the rational part of my brain caved in and didn't apply the block. Funny thing is, nobody noticed my bright red head :ticking:

Sounds good. I really want a flysurfer b/c of the wide wind range. The jury is just still out on size and that is why I asked. At 205 w/ a 158 prodigy and standard wind at about 8-14mph I am still trying to decide kite size. Any input?

19 :D

Sweet....Thanks Kami!

Yeah but I'm no guru so take that with a grain of salt ...

I was already leaning towards the 19 since I have heard the depower is really good on the flysurfers. The light wind here (under 10) makes it difficult to get the synergy inflated and up most of the time.

Yeah like I said or if I haven't I will now - I've been out on the 19 well into what would have been good for the 16 'bow ... probably up to 18 or 20 knots and still been comfy. Got picked up and lobbed on a gust so that wasn't good and landing can get entertaining, but if your plan is to go out in lower winds only then it's always good to know you've got some range out the top that's still manageable.

Personally, I think the top end of the S2 19 is much smoother than the 'bow too - the 'bow gets all twitchy and jerky and just wants to pull way downwind; the S2 will ride so close to the wind you'll have to be careful you don't get too far from shore :o