my 7m vegas is pulling to one side? Have tried different lines and bar and makes no differance? there is no visable damage to canopy or bridles the kite was bought in feb 2010 any ideas anyone?????
Bridles (can) stretch as do bar lines. Check your bridle, my bet is it is uneven.
nope all birdels match oposing side? I have tried kite with different lines and bar and still the same?????
... I may say the obvious here but I had the same and I found that the kite drifted due to the position we were testing it relative to the trees and surrounding influences even though from down on the ground we had fairly steady feeling wind. I walked further away from that particular position and the drift was different, so I concluded that the wind up top was causing the funny drift to one side. Having said that, I had a 20m X4 that got so bad that I almost had to put both hands on one side just to stear it back, but let the other side go and it would dive. I then converted it to 5 line and the problem wasn't as bad. Confused, I experimented with shorting and lengthing the front lines only until the problem was gone. Again, band aiding the situation but I concluded that I had stretched the kite one side, enough that it drifted, but with moding it patched it up.
Good luck,
cheers,
Robbie
It could be:
1. Stretched bridles, but you have eliminated that...
2. Strtethed/twisted lines, especially if you favour tricks in one direction. Pinch the lines out and compare the lengths...
3. Twisted kite, from too many crashes. Put the kite LE down on a hard level flat surface and see if it 'Sits' right...
Hope that helps...
Dude - heres the easy way to fix it
1. check bar & lines under tension without the kite - obvious
2. Put a tape measure on any rear/front line knots/loops from kiteside down to knot exactly
3. measure all knots from bar end
4. measure all bridle lengths
It will be one of those - with any new kite it always pays to measure all lines up before using just to be on the safe side and check tightness of all bridal connections.
Do not trust a brand name as they even state specifically - you are responsible for safe use and checking of all lines (that means all !! )
If you have then done a thorough job checking everything - you bought it in Feb, take it back to the shop. Its a warranty job and ask for a loan kit in the mean time... Or.... by simply adjusting the opposite side knot up towards the kite 1 cm at a time till it sits at 12 again
If you reckon the lines and canopy are alright I would be checking the structure of the Leading Edge.
I had trouble a few years ago and it didn't matter what I tried it still pulled to the right.
It wasn't until I pulled the L/E bladder out to see if it had a twist in it that I found the problem.
It wasn't the bladder, in fact it was the leading edge itself. When pumping the kite back up to see if I had put the bladder back correctly I noticed that one wind tip was pointing towards the roof and the other was at about 75 degrees.
The leading edge was not constructed correctly.
I done this in my shed. When pumping up outside in the wind it wasn't noticable.
It actually took me 6 months to find out the problem.
I sent it back to the importer and they agreed the kite was faulty but the French brand didn't want to know about it. Hence I don't fly that brand anymore.
The importers did look after me with a new board which I was happy about.
Hi Doonut
Funny as this happened to me 2 days ago, my 7 was flying perfectly then suddenly I needed twice the strength on one side to keep it flying straight.
After a few runs that felt more like exercise than fun and checking the bridle wasn't caught on a wing tip I shortened one back line by one knot and it and it flew perfectly like the happy demon it normally is!
A case of Spontaneous Bridle Stretching - I don't know??
Did the pulling occur after a bingle of some sort?
Thought I had feked my small kite after rolling it in the surf and getting it tangled and inverted. Upon relaunch it pulled waaayyy to one side afterwards for the rest of that sesh.
A thorough wash out after the session, to remove the handfulls of crusted up sand stuck behind the LE, helped a quite a bit.. but next time I took it out it was still a little lop sided. I assumed I had stretched the kite/bridle.
Some time later (don't get my small kite out often) I looked very closely at the bridle(s) and realised that on the side it was pulling to, one length of bridle section, had actually slipped up it's connecting section (hard to describe) so that it was all looking normal, but was in fact slightly shortening that side of the entire bridal. Slipped that section along it's connecting section back into place and kite was as good as new.
Try laying your deflated kite out with wing tips close to each other and carefully compare/mirror each section of the bridle from the two sides against each other. You never know.
This has happend to me as well.
I went to the doctors and found out that one of my arms was a full inch shorter
than the other one.
When standing on the beach with my kite in the air,I now dont stand looking directly down wind but stand at a slight angle so my arms are equal lenght.
Hope this helps.
Easiest way to cure your problem is sell your Vegas on Seabreeze.com.au and buy a Fuel
how do vegas's compare to fuels i was thinking of getting a new kite just to keep up with new gear, and the new vegas look horrible who designed the coulor theme
they should be shot
Hi Guys,
If not the bridle or lines, put the kite indoors or in your garage and pump it up nice and hard and see if there is any twist in the leading edge. This is the most common cause of pulling to one side.
Leading edges can twist from the bladder being twisted inside the leading edge casing. This can occur by bad kite rolling technique, or a few decent crashes, especially if the LE is deflated in a self rescue situation.
To remedy: Remove the bladder and carefully re-insert the bladder. Follow the tips on the link below
www.kiteboardingschool.com.au/index.php/Beginner-newbie-tips/tip-21-fixing-a-leak-in-a-bladder.html
Cheers,
DM
just pumped it up indoors and the LE doesn't sit flat on floor it sits abit higher on one side so i gess il take the bladder out n put it back in a try again, just remember once my LE plug came out in a crash n i got to swim mabye that did it?
yerp took it out put it back doesn't seem to have made much differance so i just shortened one back line
It could also be due to the kite not stitched right from the factory. I had an old North with the same issue and it was the kite that wasn't right. This was before bridles were even thought about.
Hey Doonut,
I played around with line lenghts, extra pig tails etc etc. Still no good.
Sorry mate in might be a bin case.
Hi guys,
To fix a pulling kite, adding or subtracting length to back lines doesn't help. You need to add or subtract to the front lines which will compensate the error. Lengthening or shortening back lines just throws your bar out of level.
DM
two wrongs do make a right
tie a knot in it(not in the line,the fat bit at the end)
worked for me
apparently can do a bit of harm to the breaking strain of said fat bit/or line, but i dunno
^^^^^if its pulling to the right you need to either shorten the left to compensate or lengthen the right
Just read the 1st couple of posts so not sure if this has been mentioned as it almost never happens but if everything is ok as you say then chk for sand in the bladder jammed down in one wing tip that will tilt you.
Rare fault but still just an idea.
Or deformity with the leading edge chk the bladder out make sure it has symmetry to each wing tip ??
