Pardon my trolling in here, but I was hoping the P4 13m would be ideal for twin tips, with more power as being a lighter kite, but so far it seems no--- it's a crap kite for twin tip, looping, jumps (boosting at least), and unhooked tricks. It's a great kite for foilers of course. Am I wrong here?
I'd agree... despite all the zealotry they are not a performance kite in that sense. Amazing for foiling, good for downwind surf sessions depending on your style of riding, and i anticipate awesome in the snow, but if you want to generate instantaneous power then you're out of luck...!
Look at the Soul or Sonic for TT, much better upwind and hang time. I doubt you could hold your ground on a Peak/TT combination.
A Peak will go upwind well with a flat, fast TT (I know that from personal experience with a 13, 8, 5 and 4 meter Peak4) , but I think it would be tough with a slower, rockered, power-sucking TT. The Peak4 is definitely not a jumping kite and would be a disappointment to someone who is expecting performance in that area.
I used my 9m mono after 20+ straight sessions on mostly peak 5m. Peaks have officially ruined inflatables for me. Could not enjoy the monos lack of instant complete depower. Slowness to turn & accelerate. Heaviness in the lulls sinking back to the water. General feeling of getting out of a sports car into a truck. I'm broken now. Can't wait for the 6m
We've had some good wind for foiling this season and some strong wind as well. Being 65kg I can get going on the 3m Peak4 in 15 knots but 25+ knots was a bit sketchy with not enough depower to avoid outrunning waves and wash off speed as fast as I liked.
I read about another couple of 3m Peak4 users changing their line length on the bar from 21-25m down to 12-14m to handle 30 knot winds with ease so yesterday when a nor-easter started gusting over 25 knots I decided to come in and shorten my lines and see how well it worked.
I have the Flysurfer Connect bar & lines which fortunately have a 7m line extension which can easily be removed reducing line length from 21m to 14m. After making the adjustment I went back out on the 3m Peak4 to feel the result. Instantly there was less power to deal with but I was still able to get up and foil without any problems. The feel was a lot more direct and the control of the kite was a little more twitchy but easy to get used to. Upwind was easy and surfing large rolling wind chop downwind was much easier. It was easier when surfing any wave to either left or right as there was more feel from the kite even when it was behind me.
There was one patch of water out in the bay which seems to have a regular and inexplicable lull and I had to work the kite through this and the board came off the foil for 5m, but if I had kept foiling through and hadn't been turning it wouldn't have been a problem. The shorter lines, as well as decreasing the power stroke, have much less drag in the wind and the back lines in particular billow back a fair bit at 21m but much less at 14m. I think this drag in high wind causes unwanted sheeting/powering up of the kite which doesn't need much pressure on the back lines to power up the kite.
So is it worth having a short line set for strong wind? For me yes. It made surf foiling in strong gusty wind easier and much more fun
I'll now have 14m & 21m bar and line sets to choose from to suit the conditions. I'll try the 4m Peak4 next with the short line set and see how it works.