FlySurfer Titan

Part I

Got a chance to get my 15.5 Titan out on the water yesterday at a beach near camber sands. Here are a few things that i found with the kite.

First of all I am a new kitesurfer, infact yesterday was my first day on the water ever, but I have flown the titan a few times on land with my mountain board and so far I have been loving it. The power in the kite is amazing and the de-power is fantastic i would say that you get 3/4 the pull when the bar is out!

So far i haven’t landed it on water so i cant comment on the water relaunchability. The wind was 5-8mph, onshore and fairly steady and other people on the beach were: x 2 20m Rhino 2′s and x1 16m free air.

The kite was easy to self launch take it out of the bag, unwind lines, pre-inflate it a little and then put some sand on the wind tip, walk down to lines, attach the safety clip and then clip into the chicken loop…deep breath and then take off.. for take off i had the kite on full yellow (depower) and it effortlessly went up to the zenith and stayed there at first it would slightly overfly a little but by adding a little of the blue (power up) it would sit really stable and not luff.

I walked to the water with my board (loose tx 156) and messed about trying to get on the board a few times came in after about 10 mins to have a little rest. when i got back on the water i managed to get on the board and plane away across the shore line to say i was happy was an understatement i even managed to turn around and come back the other way without sinking , by this time i had turned the power on quite alot and was up to about 3/4 on the Blue and Yellow and found i had easlity enough power to get up and plane.



things i found :

The only other guys on the beach planing were on 20m LEI’s i was on a 15.5 foil so i think that they were of similar power.

I didnt have to work the kite once i was up and going, it just locked in place and off i went and i was able to hold my course very easily and not go down wind. When getting going i was diving the kite and as i pulled it back up i would pull the bar in and the kite would take my weight and it was fairly easy to get up on the board.

Landing the kite was very easy, you have two ways :

If you have a mate there… get him or her to catch it at the edge of the wind or you can just pull the chicken loop release, (and as my mate reminded me to, hold on to the blue safety line) and the kite will nearly totally depower and land in the middle of the wind. VERY useful and very safe.

So far the kite has totally blown me away (no pun intended) the depower on it is fantastic and the safety features have been fantastic, and as i bought it as light to medium wind kite it has been fantastic if you can feel wind there is enough to land board with it… and in 8mph you will be planing on the water.

I will update this when i feel i have learnt more about it and when i have had a chance to land it on water and see how easy it is to relaunch.

I would dare to say it is a good beginner kite as i have flown kites for a long time, but if if you fly alot and are looking for a kite to land board with and kitesurf i am sure you cant go wrong with a titan!





PART II

OK that was a couple of weeks ago.

In the past few weeks i have been able to use the kite lots more, not on water but on land with my Mountain board…

I have learnt to use way better than i was flying it when i got it, it very rarely over flies me now as i have learnt how to stop it doing it at all, and i have found that i can fly it in way more wind on land than i thought i would be able to. I have had two main days flying it where the wind was good (ish) where i fly is really gusty in an Easterly which on both occasions is what i had.

Day 1.
Wind was 3-10 mph, I was able to get going all the time and was able to do nice jumps in the gusts. when going along in the lower windspeeds i had to work the kite a little to get up to cruising speed but once there i was able to lock the kite in and cruise around the field. which was nice. Jumping was similar to the Frenzy…take kite low and then redirect to the zenith, carve up wind and pull the bar in…pull the front hand in and redirect and you float… and float and err FLOAT, this would be the only thing that i could say that makes it a little unsuitable for mountain boarding is that it is very easy to cover half a football field in the air specially when it is gusty. getting the kite up in the air in light winds is fairly easy…



You pre-inflate it by holding it up in the breeze untill it is holding its shape fairly well, then go to the bar, pull the yellow trim in all the way, clip into the chicken loop and off you go, when the kite is fully inflated and flying well you can start to power it up by pulling the blue power strap in.

In really light winds you cant really power it up loads, 50% is about all you can do without it falling out of the sky…. saying that i dont think i have ever flown it on %100 as if there was enough wind to get it going it would be scary. even in low winds it is quite quick… easy to loop the kite.

Day 2.
Wind started at about 5mph but increased to a fairly steady 12-15 (gulp). Started off with a few jumps without the board and found it very easy to stay in the air for 3 second but would only be a few feet off the ground. i found it alot easier to jump with the Titan than with the Frenzy i never really got it going with the Frenzy in respect to jumping without the board. i could quite happily get 10-12ft of air quite consistantly.

On the board things were really hotting up, this was about as much wind as i would like to have the kite up with the mountain board…. jumps were really quite high and very VERY long… the thing that i have noticed with the kite in comparison to the Frenzy is that the stearing is alot lighter as is the powering up… you can pull the bar in with one hand and you will get pulled up which is great for grabs, foot offs etc…. the latter is something i STILL cant do.



I found that if the kite was going to overfly me all i had to do was pull the bar in about an inch and it would stop and sit in the zenith…. as for the depower it is fantastic the differnece in the power when having the blue strop pulled in compared to the yellow is amazing… i now see why the guys at Oceanside say that they never fly theirs on %100 it would be a crazy amount of power!!!

All in all i think the 15.5 is great for Mountainboarding in light winds…in a good breeze you will find it hard to not jump too far. if you have a massive area then you will be fine… but if your in a small area you might find yourself climbing out of a tree or off the roof!

next test will be on the water….and as i am down in devon for a week next week i should have a good idea by then!!!

By : Tone

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