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Posted Thu Nov 09, 2006 12:17 pm Post subject

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I have been flying the Links for about 3 months now. I have the 15M rigged 5 line and the 12M, 9M & 7M rigged 4 line.

I lengthened the 5th line about 10 inches and the back lines by 2 inches on the 15M. The 15M Link performs great with these adjustments. Its boosts high, points high, has great range and stability. This was my favorite of the lot until SS came out with a new bridle for the 12M Link.

I've flown the 12M Link with the new bridle twice now in powered conditions. Once in on shore 15 to 25mph and once in straight offshore 10 to 30 mph wave kiting very gusty conditions. Prior to the bridle replacement my main issue with the 4 line 12M Link was that couldn't get really high on my jumps like my Octane or Fuel 2006 kites. However since I made the bridle change the kite is now boosting amazingly. It also points high, turns fast, relaunches easily by just pointing the bar at the kite and can handle gusty conditions easily. The new bridle did increase bar pressure but this is a plus as you can clearly feel where the kite is in the air on jumps without looking at it. My only concern is that the new bridle is significantly longer than the previous one and this may cause it to wrap on the kite more easily in the surf.

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SS Kiter
Rare Poster


Joined: 03 Feb 2005
Posts: 37

Posted Thu Nov 09, 2006 2:25 pm Post subject

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Kiteosphere,

I got the new bridle too and I agree with all you said. The Link performs so much better with RED CODE BRIDLE that it turned in a completily diferent kite.
Now I can say I´m flying the real LINK.
Had a great session yesterday on 5 to 6´waves. Now I´m stoked with LINK.
All Link owners will be surprised with it´s perfromance on new bridle.

I feel sorry for SS guys to had such a big mistake in such a great kite.

To Slingy

You lose respect each day this goes on.

Don't do a Hellfish!

Put these red thingy's on the next shuttle from Planet SS, give them to customers, kiss their ass, apologise and retain some customers next year.

Al lot of people will still not go near Best after the stinkfish debacle.

I feel for you guys. If this happened with my kites i would be incandescent. The season has well and truly started. I have heard people bag Cabrinha for service but the only problem i have have encountered was a bar coming out 2 months late when the 04 kites came out.

Their solution was to give us a brandnew 03 bar in the interim which we could keep (for free) once the new bars came out 2 months later.

Hire some of those G20 protesters and trash their HQ.

I've just bought a Link 12, and I've got the non-red bridle set up.

I've had absolutely no trouble with my kite or their service...

I love my new baby and when the new bridle comes in, It'll be like taking my wife home for the first time...all over again!!

Love ya's

i've been flying the link 9.

Its a pretty good kite.

cant really see what all the crap is about.

I think there are alot of people out there with **** flying skills who blame the kite for there lack of ability.

yeah ok.

Ill give it a spin and show u how to bust on them.

no shackle required.

its only bad when frikken windy. eg not beginner territory.

flys very well in the lower end of the wind range. aslong as you dont oversheet (which will be tought in there first lesson) which alot of seasoned kooks never learn.

still waiting.
any updates on where these bridals are?

I dont see how best cops it here? In my eyes Best reputation has risen remarkably. ie if you dont like the kite you can return it for a full refund - no problem.
When the released a kite without testing it properly, and it screwed up - they offered a full refund, no quibbles.

The hellfish might have been a disaster, but in terms of how best dealt with it (after the fact), their customer service was absolutely brilliant! (I should know - I bought one! )
And I would buy from them again.

beginning to think im a sucker...oh well you live and learn,
and learn again.

so ive set the link up in 5 line mode, and it works well.
should keep me happy until the new bridal comes in.
unless the relaunch proves to be a painful exersise.

mark

Hi Andrew,

Saw your comments on the Seabreeze forum and I would value your opinion.

Me and my girlfriend are completely new to Kiteboarding and have only managed to get on the bopard for about 10 min after IKO lessons.

Whilst in Noosa, we decided to purchase our gear and opted for a 2007 Slinshot Link 12m and a liquid force board.

We took it out to Noosaville and the popular kitesurfing training spot and it was a disaster. It would not fly at all! It would only stay up for a few seconds before something unexpected happened. Once it crashed on the water we would need assistance of another 3 people to get it back up and even still it looked like something is not right.

Then again we tried it in Surfers Paradise and again the same thing. We started to doubt our own abilities on flying the kite!

For a third time we tried again in Port Douglas and spent our entire day just trying to get it to fly!. Needless to say this whole experience has dampened our new found enthousiasm of the sport and has knocked the confidence we build during intense hours of (expensive) kiteboarding lessons. So in total we have actually got the kite to fly for about a minute since purchasing it

Did some digging around and found that there had been some problems (we have been trying to fly it as a 5 line all along and it was actually set up as a 5 line from the shop purchased (Kitesurf Australia). The modifications highlighted on the SS website were carried out by ourselves (a big guessing game to a complete amateur on how to make those changes BTW). Since then we have not flown the kite. (we are waiting for it to be shipped from Oz to New Zealand which is where we are now). Would kit fly better now? Would we be able to enjoy it as it was intended??

My concern is that looking at all the hassle we had to go through with this kite and the amount of money spent we would have liked to have a good product. There is also a lot of negative feedback on this kite and I am getting worried we bought a dud.

Ideally we would like from SS to have a look at this and fly it for us since we would not know handling characteristics etc etc. We just want to carry on our learning on this kite and have some fun.

We are in NZ till the 5th Jan 07 then off to Argentina for a month ( it would be nice to kitesurf there)

Any ideas??

Many Thanks and happy Christmas!
Vas

I'm going back to 5th line on my 12 after trying the red bridals. with a few mods the 5th line mode can be much better than stock and I felt that it had a lot more grunt in 5th line mode. I'll probably stick with red bridals on my 7 tho.

after i try back on 5th line today I'll see which is better.