Hey Seabreezers, I have a Slingshot Link 12m as my second kite (just bought a new Rebel 09 12m) and was thinking of taking the Link to a sail maker and looking at cutting it down to 9m. Reasons being a second hannd 9m anything would be more then i would get for the link, thats if i could sell it. Main problems i can see would be getting the bridles in the right spot.

If any ones got a 9m link would be great if they could get me some measurements.

Look forward to seeing what you all think.
Thanks
Shane

you must be kidding - right?

Hi Shane,

I think it's doable and forget what the doubters say. If at the end of the day it's a total dog, you wouldn't be out much cash and it would have been a great learning experience.

There's a website where a guy puts up plans for inflatables that you can build at home, but I can't find it at the moment, but I'll keep looking and see what comes up.

This link has a whole bunch of stuff on the theory of kite design and might give you a few pointers: http://kitesurfingschool.org/kite.htm

Good luck,
Gorilla

Edit: Just saw lostinlondon's post above and disagree that you would have to get new bladders. If you have a look at how the bladders are put in some kites, they are too long and the ends rolled up to get them to the right length. If the rolled up bit is too big, cut it shorter and seal the cut with an iron.

Building Frankenstein stuff is fun, but bear in mind that things can go wron, so be ready to bail at the first sign

waxman said...

If ss couldn't get this kite to fly from brand new what chance do you have with trying to replicate a 9m and getting it to work.

I'm pretty sure SS released a bridal mod which sorted out the probs it had. That being said, I think It would take a fair amount of kite expertise to turn a 12 into a 9 and have it fly good. It's probably not worth the effort. Their are plenty of good cheap 2nd hand 9's going around. But let us know how it goes if you do it.

My first thought was that it is not do-able and is a crazy idea.

But thinking about it further, it might work if you chop out a rectangular slice from the middle of the kite. You would cut off centreline (twice) from leading edge (tube) to trailing edge and then rejoin. You would lose the centre strut and bring the next two in pretty close.
Not sure if you could lose 3m2 this way as you would stuff up the leading arc when you start to cut too much and bring the next struts too close. You could always move the struts out, but this is tricky if it is a one-pump kite.

You really need to scale the kite down in all 3 dimensions and this is only doing it in 1. But you would roughly maintain the balance between the kite's centre of lift and the bridle connections. By getting the sailmaker to add some more bridle connection points to the tube you could play around with it.

Having said all of this, I still think its a waste of time and effort for the likely result. You could probably buy a dodgy old-skool 9m for the same cash outlay and get a much better result.

I'm fairly skilled with a sewing machine and I also know a bit about seam shaping and aerodynamics and the thought of getting a 12 down to an even slightly functional 9 is just straight-up hilarious. Tweaking a seam here or there if you know what effect you're after, maybe, but a whole kite reduction is just nightmarish.

Sure some board design developments have happened through folk just chopping off nose or tail sections cos they were damaged or the person felt like it, but the three dimensional and dynamic elements of kite performance are a lot more complex than that.

If it was me I'd use the link as a tarp and spend $500 on a 2007 or so 9m in ok condition.

On the other hand, no one wants a link so financially you have nothing to lose if you do the work yourself. Just be sure to have someone filming and an ambulance at the ready when you take your first outing on the re-incarnated mongrel.