Had some super crap conditions today, decent wind offshore was generating some close together and tall enough waves, spring tides creating some dead stop rips, a steady following sweep and to top it off gusty south easterly 15-20 kts. The usual story you're hooning until a wave stands up in front of you, at which time the wind drops to nothing
Anyway I did a downwind run on my 9m method v2, had an alright time mostly stuck inside the break. When I got to the end of the run I finally got the absolute ****s with the stupid switch bar and decided to get a new one. Went down to the local shop and asked for an ozone bar at which time he suggested I take the shop 12m Reo out for a spin.. Why the hell not!
Good timing as I had only just jumped off the 9m not 30mins before so was very interested to compare the two. The wind was about the same, the sea was still super ****ty and I was using my 6'1's-quad rather than the 5'8" bws drifter that I had used earlier. As I'd noticed previously there is absolutely nothing to these kites, pretty sure the 12 is lighter than my 9. Once it was in the air all the qualities I had noticed from observing others riding this kite became apparant:
* laser pointer quick, for a 12 it was as quick as the 9 without a doubt.
* super stable, I stuffed up the crest of a wave and got barrelled. Twisted around, let go of the bar, kite just lurks up there waiting to go again.
* not as sensitive as the method to the height of the kite during turn transitions. If you have the method too high it rips and flutters across the window, very unpleasant. The Reo just seemed to give you a nit of lift while it completed its ninja zap to the new tack, no flutter.
My long winded question here though is power, where is it? Even though the s-quad is longer it has more rocker than the drifter so a bit harder to push through the water but for a 12 meter I expected a lot more pull. Probably my lack of time with the kite but building apparent wind didn't help the situation greatly. Is this related to the shorter chord on the 2013 models, or just the nature of the beast? Given the 2014 probably come closer to method dimensions are they going to start fluttering through the turns but have more pull?
