WA
7 posts
Rode 830 nomad and 890 mk2 armstrong.
These are only sort of comparable, as they are designed with different intents. The 830 nomad takes off a lot earlier, is slower, can go slower before dropping off foil. Carving and turning these foils felt similar, both are super slippery in turns and a lot of fun. The nomad also had more feedback when pumping, again owing to the very generous low end on all of these foils (also tried the 1160). The armstrong felt higher performance. The nomad was generally more beginner friendly. Neither foil was hard to use. Didn't test how glidey they felt as I was riding in powered conditions. Can't comment on stiffness because i used an Alu KT mast (which felt fine) and a carbon armstrong mast. The KT foil setup whistles progessively louder as you max out the speed for a given front wing, but i dont know which component in the setup causes this.
Obviously the KT setup with an alu mast is extremely affordable, relative to the armstrong. I'm a big fan of the KT range for casual riding for most people - they're just all kinda slow, which may bother some people eventually.
WA
7 posts
2026 wings are out, wondering if anyone's got any info. It looks like Neil Pryde has ditched the semi-aluula design on the Firefly Pro in favor of keeping it full aerotex or whatever, and have kept the Fly 4 Pro as the premium material wing.
WA
7 posts
the full brochure is available if you're nice to your dealer... important things are slight weight reductions across the sizes, and the tail is now squash/flat edge rather than pointy/downwind style, which im honestly surprised by, but armstrong were ahead of the curve by 1-2 years with the original ML board design, so i trust they know better than me what's good in a design!
WA
7 posts
Agreed.. but in Defi conditions, there's lots of factors that go into it, and there was a huge amount of algae in the water this year. I'd like to see a bigger sample size of consistent performance from parawings vs dual skins before I make any conclusions :) My ozone dealer told me that no details about the afterburner were available yet. But, I'd imagine if someone were to make an insane race parawing, it would be ozone! Don't want to take away credit from Axel, the guy has been a monster for many years.
WA
7 posts
Lots of interesting development. Axel Mazella was incredibly fast at Defi Wing on the new ozone parawing - but the second place parawinger (relative to the entire fleet, including the wingers) was a long way away. So in this case the rider was really the deciding factor. Really keen to see if they can make a parawing perform better than a wind wing when powered.
WA
7 posts
The DLAB Ventis has the easiest handling of all the light wind wings I've owned because of the huge weight reduction. I've not tried the dacron one. Pumping it is really straightforward, but as others have said, it's not the fastest wing ever and the moment you can get up on a unit, you're probably going to go a bit faster. However, the ventis tacks wonderfully - really autopilot and something that makes me reach for it again and again even when i don't need it just to get up. If there's a photographer on the beach that day and its not too windy, I know which wing im picking 😎 this is a wing that makes mediocre people look good.
I tend to use it between 5-9kt and take out the 6m unit at 9+ if I want to feel comfortably powered. The fastest i've ever gone with it is about 22kt, and you feel the drag in your hands when trying to push it.
