Cut Days Off Your Kitesurfing Learning Time And Save Hundreds On Your Lesson Costs - Free Chapters. First of all I’d like to congratulate you on taking your first steps into the world of kitesurfing. This is an exciting time and the journey you’re about to embark upon is a fun one. We wish you the best of luck in your adventures and if you do need anything at any point along the way feel free to drop us an email and just let us know how your doing or if your struggling with something to ask for a bit of advice, we’ll be only too happy to help! Good winds and good luck! ____________________________________________________________ Read The Full Book At: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kitesurfing-Learning-Hundreds-Lessons-ebook/dp/B009E1IINC If you like it please be kind and leave us a 5 star review. ____________________________________________________________ Different Types Of Kites Used In Kite Sports. As far as we are concerned in power kiting, kitesurfing, snow kiting or land boarding/buggying there are, in essence, 2 different types of kites. Very briefly these are: The LEI Kite Leading Edge Inflatable (LEI) Kites - LEI simply means that the kite has an inflatable structure, any kite that needs to be pumped up is an LEI. This classification can be broken down into C, Bow, Hybrid and Delta style kites. www.TantrumKitesurf.com The Foil Kite Foil/Power kites - Foil kites look very similar to the wings used by parascender's and can be broken down into open and closed cell kites. Foil kites are not (generally) inflated with a pump but instead take their shape from the air flowing over and through them. www.TantrumKitesurf.com We're not going to launch into a full discussion of the relative pro's and con's of each of the different types of kites at this point. All we want to do here is show you the different types of kites and very briefly give you an idea of some of the characteristics of each. 4 Line vs 5 Line Kites Most modern kites will have 4 lines, 2 centre lines and 2 back lines. The centre lines attach to the kite nearer to the centre of the kite and the back lines attach at the back wingtip of the kite. If a kite has a 5th line it will attach in the very centre of the kite. LEI Kites The C Kite www.TantrumKitesurf.com C Style - C style types of kites are recognisable by the lack of a bridle and the distinctive C shape. These kites are the kites that many of us old schoolers learnt on. Fast and powerful through the turn they do however suffer from a lack of de power which has led to their decline in recent years. Recognisable at the beach by their distinctive blocky wing tips and clear corners. These kites have no bridle and the lines attach at each of the 4 corners of the wingtips. C kites can be either 4 or 5 line, however, if they have 5 lines the fifth line should attach directly to the centre of the kite at one point. If the fifth line splits in any way or joins to a line which then splits and attaches to the leading edge in 2 or more places the kite is a hybrid kite and not a true C kite. Originally the fifth line was designed to assist with relaunch as it enabled the kite to be pulled up into the relaunch position once it had crashed. Recent improvements in kite relaunch design have rendered this system pretty much obsolete and these days it is www.TantrumKitesurf.com mainly used for safety as a kite flagged onto the fifth line will depower 100% and is the safest kind of safety system there is. The fifth line on a true C kite is not designed to be under tension, the kite does not fly off this line it is solely there for re launch and safety. Conversely the fifth line on a hybrid kite will be under tension as it actually affects the flight characteristics of the kite. The Bow Kite Bow Style - named after the distinctive bow shape of the kite. To be a Bow kite the kite must have a bridle and most will have distinctive swept back wing tips. The bridle on these kites allows for almost 100% de power which means these kites are safer and much more comfortable to ride for people getting into the sport. This alone has led to these kites becoming the dominant kite on the water these days with most schools now teaching on bow kites www.TantrumKitesurf.com and many riders preferring them due to their ease of handling and increased safety. Introduced back in 2005 and said to have been inspired by a thread on a forum, the Bow kite has now spawned several variants. All the kites mentioned below are basically different styles of Bow kites. Several manufacturers have taken the basic Bow kite design and further tweaked, thus you can see the Naish Sigma kite (which has a bent leading edge), and several other funky designs however we only deal with the widespread and widely adopted design trends here. The Hybrid Kite Hybrid Kites - a trade off between C and Bow style kites. Hybrid kites will always have a bridle of some sort but will also have a concave trailing edge (as opposed to a bow kite which will have a convex trailing edge). Hybrid kites can be referred to as either hybrid bow kites or hybrid c kites, which simply refers to which design they are closest to, a hybrid C kite will more closely resemble a C kite with the typical C profile but will have a bridle of some sort. Where as a hybrid bow kite will be more similar to a bow, possibly the only distinguishing www.TantrumKitesurf.com feature being the concave trailing edge. There now also exist Hybrid Delta kites which again is a Delta kite with a concave trailing edge. Hybrid kites are designed to capture the best of both kites combining the raw aggression of the C kite design with the precision and flexibility of the Bow design. The Delta Kite Delta Style kites - Delta style types of kites are recognisable by their highly swept back wing tips. These kites are designed to relaunch easier and fly more efficiently in light winds. With some loss of top end performance. A relatively recent design innovation they were originally introduced in 2009 and have since taken off with most major brands now offering their own design in some shape or form. Due to their easy relaunch, great handling and light wind performance they have become very popular with schools. While not necessarily the kite of choice for the advanced riders they do offer the beginner an even faster route into the world of kitesurfing. www.TantrumKitesurf.com SLE Kites You are going to hear this term thrown around a lot in Kitesurfing. SLE stands for Supported Leading Edge. This term is used to refer to any kite that has bridles attached to its leading edge. Bow, Hybrid and Delta kites are therefore all SLE kites, C kites are not. Foil Kites The debate about foil kites vs LEI kites has been raging in kitesurfing and many other power kite sports for as long as I can remember. General wisdom states that a foil kite is better off the water (snowkiting, landboarding etc) and an LEI kite is better on the water (kitesurfing). Recently there is a growing band of supporters for foil kites amongst kitesurfers and they are definitely becoming a more common sight on the water. One of the main reasons they haven't been more widely accepted in the kitesurfing world is the price tag, as they can cost up to double what an LEI kite costs. Which you prefer is simply a matter of taste and their are staunch opinions in both the LEI and the foil kite camp. My advise would be to try both types of kites and make up your own mind. Foil kites possess the obvious advantage of not needing to be inflated, something that all LEI riders who've ever tried to inflate a 16m kite can appreciate the value of! They have a wind range comparable to the modern bow kites and are very similar in appearance to a paraglider. The Open Cell Foil Kite www.TantrumKitesurf.com Open Cell - These kites are designed for use on land and have intakes (cells) along the leading edge of the kite designed to allow air to flow inside the kite and over the canopy. They rely on constant airflow to keep the cells inflated and so cannot be used on the water as if they crash in water these cells the material quickly becomes saturated while the open cells allow water inside the kite which makes relaunch impossible. The Closed Cell Foil Kite Closed Cell - The same as open cell but designed for use on water. These kites use inlet valves to hold air in the chamber. The www.TantrumKitesurf.com pressure inside the cells keeps the valves open so once the kite crashes and the airflow stops the pressure drops and the cell door closes preventing water from entering. Relaunch is then a simple matter of tugging on the power lines. Kite Equipment You'll Need To Learn To Kitesurf. Here we introduce you to the actual kite equipment you will need to begin your training.