Have you checked your line lengths? speak to another kiter on the beach with same kite to check his setup. Were you flying kite in to little wind for size of kite?

Saffer is correct - it sounds like you may be oversheeting the kite. When you power up the kite you are changing the kite's angle into the wind by pulling the trailing edge down (or raising the leading edge up). With the kite sail facing the wind more directly you get more pull - but in order for the kite to stay in the air you still need wind to be hitting the sail and passing under it. If you change the angle too much the wind starts hitting the sail and passing up over the kite and there is nothing to support it in the air.

The other issue is the wind may be too light for the kite you're flying.

Era said...

other than having the kite too depowered what are the other causes. Ive fully powered my bar and it still likes to fly backwards!!!!! any sugestion's????

Like Saffer said you have it assbackwards.
If the front lines are too long or have stretched, then the rear lines will be too tight or short -so with the TRIMMER at its longest, the kite is TRIMMED to fly backwards.

Seems the world wants to call it powered and depowered though and thats part of your problem, you think that if you let the TRIM strap or cleat all the way out then the kite should have more power. But if your front lines have stretched, or your centre line is set too long of you just bought a kite with a poorly made line set or trim system, then at "full power" your kite will be triimmed to fly backwards its that simple.

Pull the trimer or derrpower it, and hey presto it flies forwards again, and that should tell you what I've explained here (once again) :-)

The only thing the TRIM strap does is change the relative lenghts between your front and rear lines, or their relative trim to each other.

Pulling in the trimmer or letting it out does not change the size of your kite, so its not really changing its power (is it?), but it does change how much you can adjust the speed of your kite, and the Angle Of Attack (AOA).

If the kite has a really long trim system like some bow/flat kites, its possible to "depower" the kite so much that the rear lines are so loose that you cannot steer the kite.
But its not depowered is it? Its just unsteerable!!!!
Speak to some experienced people at the beach and understand that your kite is at maximum power or OPTIMAL TRIM when all four lines are equal length.
When you need to shorten the front lines (depower) in stronger winds you are adjusting the trim of the bar/kite so that you can still hold the bar at a comfortable distance from your body, BUT the range of AOA movement that your kite had is now less (by the amount you trimmed the front lines)

Cya and

Goodwinds

Steve McTrimmed

PS - The stupid term depowered is what leads people to think its OK to fly their 12M magic bow/flat kite is 30+ knots, and then get into Sh1t! Grrr

After reading all the posts id say that i did have it "ass backwards" i was using a 7m faith kite with a tempo cardboard 135 in 25k winds weight 84kg.

Thanks for all the info guys!