Steering steadily and driving forward under its own steam, you can foil across beautifully smooth waters at speed, feeling very secure. The Nova does everything you initially need from a foil kite for light wind foiling. And we were still okay when the wind picked up towards 14 or 15 knots. The ten metre is fantastic in winds of around 10 knots – that’s really light. You gain so much more confidence in light winds. It has awesome auto-zenith stability – and this is the real advantage you’re buying into when switching from an LEI to a foil kite for hydrofoiling. It may look to be very high overhead compared to your LEI, but the Nova never overflies itself. Once the kite is overhead you’ll be amazed at how stable it feels. Remember, should you be unnerved, or if you have second thoughts, you can always just grab that big handle on the back lines and immediately collapse the kite.Īs the kite climbs up, sheet out to reduce the power and once the kite is safely up at 12, sheet in to pressure the back lines and the Nova will quickly fully inflate all the way across to the wingtips. When you’re ready and the kite looks good, continue to walk directly into the wind and the kite will start to rise up downwind. Go to your bar, hook in and then very slowly walk towards the wind and steadily away from the kite. Then put a layer of sand / pebbles in the centre of the trailing edge so it’s evenly and centrally weighted down. So, once you’re ready to go and you have your lines set up across the wind – not directly downwind as you do on a tube kite – re-check everything’s lined up and attached as it should be. The foil kite version of the Navigator has the grab handle fixed to the back steering lines that allows you to grab it and pull hard to collapse the kite when you’re ready to self land. It’s not the most high-spec system, but it’s all there – a decent quick release, line unspinner, smooth trimming cleat above the bar and a comfortable but hard wearing grip. The Peter Lynn Navigator bar is exactly the same set-up as a regular inflatable tube kite control bar, so totally familiar. The canopy is a closed cell design, so just remember to close the little Velcro opening in the trailing edge (that lets the air out when you pack the kite away), and sit the kite with the upwind tip secured down with sand / pebbles and then position the kite just slightly across the wind, so a bit of wind can enter the front cells, filling up with air while you unwrap the lines from your bar. Thankfully, the bridles on the Nova are actually nicely compact and easy to visually see when you’ve got the three layers of bridle attachment points all clear. If you’re careful about fixing the steering line attachment points on the bridle to each other and then tying them securely to one point near the centre of the kite before you roll it up when you next unroll the kite, the bridles are very easy to line up for flight. Interested? You should be.Ī lot of set-up preparation of a foil kite is actually done when you pack the kite away once you’ve finished a session. The Nova, however, is very relevant because it brings the benefits of foil use to regular freeride foilers at a fraction of the cost. Race kites are often technical to use and designed for a very small niche of top riders who are usually all sponsored anyway. Regular readers of this magazine will know that we don’t usually place too much focus on testing foil kites. FIND THEIR DETAILS AND TEST SCORE BREAKDOWNS HERE. PETER LYNN NOVA 10M Review This test first appeared in KW #101 in September 2019
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