Katani

11.08.10 - Wainman Vs Liquid Force

Shauny from Katani was kind enough to donate me their latest arrival for the weekend - the brand new 2011 LF Havoc. Took this guy down to Rye on Sunday, wind was blowing a pure Northerly, pretty steady all afternoon around 18 knots, with the occasional wind gust up to 21 knots - ideal conditions for a 12 m kite.

First impressions

An emphasis on design and construction seems to be a pretty strong theme across Liquid Force's range, from their boards, harnesses to leashes and of course, the new 2011 Havoc 12m kite.

For a 12m kite, the footprint of the backpack was surprisingly small, around the same size as my Wainman 9m (this worried me a little, as I knew I had to get it back into the bag when i was done with it).

Getting this guy outta the bag and rolling it onto the beach I was faced with LF's tangle prone bridle system, however complimentary attachment points and colour coding between the kites pigtails and the lines meant it was pretty hard to balls up the rigging for this kite.

The union pump set-up meant the whole kite and the struts were firmly inflated in around a minute of brisk pumping (something that the Wainman kites dont use). However, I'm not convinced that the struts receive the same air pressure as the leading edge, leaving them a little flexy.

The bar and CPR quick release system is a nice piece of kit and, and feels extremely ergonomic in your hands, probably the comfiest I've held. The bar has a mini-fith line for flagging out the kite for 100% depower (which I managed to try out by accident, after ballsing up a jump and un-hooking the chicken loop). The depower strap is in close proximity to the chicken loop, so trimming on the fly is pretty easy. My only criticism about this depower strap is there's a long moulded plastic piston which points right at the rider when the kite is fully powered up. Could you get hurt by this if u fell on it? Maybe. De-power the kite slightly and this will hang outta the way.

In the Air

Flying the kite you instantly notice that it has rock-solid stability, not as twitchy as some other kites; is this a good thing? Well depends how responsive you want the kite to be. The Havoc was pretty good for boosting too, and turns at a reasonable pace. However, water relaunching was extremely difficult, and not as simple as just as holding one of the outside steering lines and waiting for the kite to travel to the edge of the window and pop outta the water and back into the sky. And I must admit, when I did manage to water relaunch it felt like a fluke.

All in all, pretty good kite, but not as good as Wainman's Boss. Sorry LF lovers.

-Mick

Posted by: Katani Retail

Category: Kiteboarding