Racing with Short Lines >>

In the past I was frequently asked about the line length I use on my kites as everybody noticed they were shorter than theirs. Actually I have 15m lines on all Yakuza GTs except on the 17m which stays on 20m lines.

To my mind the biggest advantage is the increased upwind performance of the kite. Due to the reduced wind drag of the lines the kite is easily able to reach the edge of the wind window which allows me to go as much upwind as possible with an acceptable speed. This is also supported by the fact that the same kite size has less side pull with shorter lines so you can choose a bigger kite in the same wind conditions. This bigger kite also helps you going downwind as hard and fast as possible cause you just have more pull in the kite. Also the flying speed of the kite is going up so it reacts faster and you have a better feedback from the kite itself.

There is pretty much nothing bad about the short lines except the low end, windrange and harder handling. In low wind conditions when you have to work with a kite to gain speed you need as much space in the air as possible, so longer lines give you enough ground power and more space e.g. for loops. Just because you lose this latitude the windrange of the kite is scaling down. You normally don’t need more wind as you are already on the edge for your races and if the wind drops it’s harder to work with your kite.

Apart from all those theoretical wind things its evident that even a fast race kite with shorter lines will be faster than you might like. The kite will lose his stability and you have to really watch out when its getting gusty. So in the end every ambitious race pilot should decide for himself if he wants to train with shorter lines to get some extra speed, normally it’s worth the stress in the race.

Cheers

Malte