East Beach - think it will blow all day???

[Tony]

I got to EB yesterday at 4. I was on a 15 rev. It was around 12 knots or so when I started. It picked up very nice around 5 and lasted the rest of the evening. It was definitely above 15 knots. It was warm and windy! Nice for EB.

Originally Posted by Steve-O

Scott,

It may be a bit early for this, but now may be the time to share your experiences with the Easterly spikes that can occur at the end of the day. They are not too far away.

As many of you know, Scott is a guru on wind patterns.

There are several things to take into consideration and to look for with East spikes if you want to guess it (on the fly) down to 10 minutes. In a nutshell though, if you are planning on riding an East wind (especially at the SW) after work (around 5 or 5:30) look at what the wind did the day before by checking iKitesurf for the previous day's wind.
If the day before the wind showed a spike around 5, odds are pretty good it's going to do it again. Plan accordingly. The safest thing to do is to just rig a 12 or 9 and just wait. It's not the time of year (yet) for the death spikes, but I personally make a habit of not rigging/riding UNTIL it picks up.
It usually blows til sunset, so what's the point of mowing the lawn in 11/12 knots just to get blasted off and have to re-rig? Let alone a true spike will do more than blow you off the water, it will also blow you across the road or loft you over a mangrove tree

Yesterday was just more of just an increased E as the wind came down from up high to down where we were as the land cooled off. I would have been surprised if it pulled a true spike from 12 to 35, that requires a whole different set of circumstances. I actually rigged my 12.5 because I was anticipating 18 to low 20's and wanted to test the top end on it (just got it )
If I think that pattern of extreme spikes is coming again, I will post warnings and hope you guys spread the word.
Last year was exceptionally unusual in the force and frequency of the spikes. Luckily, they showed an obvious pattern though, so we have a chance to not get caught off guard from them.

[inferno]

scott, how'd you like the 12.5?
what mode did you have it rigged in?

It's a good wake style/unhooked kite and jumps high.
I got it to practice unhooked in 13 to 18, so it fits the bill.
It's a safe kite, because it's not apt to accidentally loop on you (it's not fast enough without huge bar input).
Every kite has pros and cons.

I will be pumped when all kites come with 2 or more bridle configurations (2 or more totally different bridles and different LE attachment points) to set the kite for different all around behaviors. It's obvious the bridles strongly influence the kite. I'd like a kite that has several attachment points to vary kite behavior. The Ion2 has a couple LE options.
When I have a kite with one bridle config that loops fast and then can set another config to "park" I will be a happy camper. I expect (hope) that this will be the next real step up in kite design.

I haven't tried this kite with the fifth line config yet, btw.

[inferno]

i want to know how it flies in five line mode, no bridles... i wasnt to thrilled with it in bridle mode... but like you said, it may be different with the different attachment points.....

if it does well in 5line mode, i may still look at getting one for my high wind kite, maybe the 8.5.....