I just saw on FB that Steffen, Kerstin, and the German team at Born-Kite just alerted the world to three new lines of kites. I know I'm a total "homer" for these guys, but Steffen is a friend and I just love their "Last of the Great Independents" attitude plus I really like their kites!

So now they have an expanding quiver of water kites (the HydroStar) some wings (WingStar) and a 4th generation DP SS in relaxed geometry, the venerable LongStar4.

I've owned the original LongStar (yikes!) and LongStar2s. The LS2s were good SS DP engines. I switched over to their more aggressive 6:1 AR RaceStar+ kites a few years ago but the LS kites are great choices to consider if you're in the market for a Peak-like kite but for whatever reason want to look around. The Peaks are great too of course; I'm just sayin...

Hey, you might want to edit that screenshot and repost, we can see thumbnails of your entire phone photo library at the bottom of it.

Erratic winds. Thanks. I can do that, but honestly I'm not concerned. Nothing incriminating!

The HydroStar and WingStar look interesting. There are already a few single skin kites on the market that are supposed to be water relaunchable. The Peak 4 was not designed specifically for a water launch, but it is popular with some kitefoilers for light wind.

It will be interesting to see what the sourcing is for the WingStar. As far as I know, so far, they all come from Asia (mainly China) except for one brand based in South Africa. It will be interesting to see if the WingStar is made in the EU, like Born's other products. I wonder also if the WingStar is intended for water use (wingfoil and SUP) or mainly land (ice, snow, beaches, parking lots, major freeways :D.) The competition on the water side is really fierce and I have to think that Born is a bit late to the party on that score. However, EU sourcing along with an attractive price and perhaps more focus on land and snow could make it a success, esp. if the wings coming from Asia are stuck in a container ship somewhere.

Even if someone has no interest in foiling a wing with an SUP makes for a great way to enjoy an easy, low cost and low stress wind+water sport. Just don't expect to go very fast, although you can leave most SUPer's behind in your wake on a windy day.

Its strange that your screenshot clearly shows > Hydrostar, Wingstar, Longstar 4<. but if you search inside > http://www.born-kite.de < for Hydrostar, it returns "There are no search results"

I've wondered about that too. A wing purpose built for kite buggy or ATB would be a nice addition. I would want something with a lower aspect ratio (reduced wingspan) esp. for use in a buggy. Going upwind is much more efficient on land than on the water, so a lower AR should not be a problem. Adding a wing to a buggy gives it many of the advantages of a blokart w/o the complexity and cost. It would be especially nice now with the Euro so low.