woo hoo,

kite buggies are better... well on some days anyhow

A kite buggy has just smashed the record speed pulling 124 kmph in the Las Vegas dry lake at the NABX annual meeting. Basically boneville for kiters.

I guess kite surfers need to try some foil kites in Namibia next time ?

that doing it ,smashing the old speed by 9km

124kmh/77.05mph “TBC” Arjen van der Tol H 42 (Holland) NEW PB

that's totally out there

Might pay to check the greenbird website cause they just busted the wind powered landspeed record with a staggering 200kph.... just a wee bit faster than 125! so the buggy record is just that a buggy record... gotta remember that kites hold the outright water speed record over all comers!
blog.greenbird.co.uk/2009/03/27/greenbird-smashes-world-record/

hard words there CT

i think you will find that greenbird is in, A class landyacht

and a kite buggy is in F class landyacht.(same as the blokarts)

and still faster then a kitesurfer

Not intended to be 'hard words' but you gotta compare apples with apples.... land yachts and buggies push the limits on land... Kites and windsurfers on the water so in reply to the comment above
' guess kite surfers need to try some foil kites in Namibia next time'
then given the drag factors relative to water a kiter doing over 110 k in Namibia last year stacks up pretty well against a buggy hitting 125 on land...

Reality is tho you just cannot compare speed over land and water!

We have our work cut out for us. 3m kite for the 117kph is high winds... what was the wind readings?

Not picking sides either but it's a helluva lot more comfortable in a buggy than on water with a board. As a person who enjoys both I have no doubts I'm capable of 80kph on water. However I'm only frustrated with my limitations in gear on land till now.

But the guy in his nice closed cockpit landyacht playing with a few hardwired controls have it easier still I guess. Then again you can watch the Sailrocket video over and over again eh!

That's why we pick on those poor landboarders, because we know they're the real tough nuts!

On the 117kmph day the winds were 48-64kmph or 25-35knots or so i read on the racekites.com forum. Its an awesome speed, considering your bum is only 2inches off the ground and done in a libre hardcore.

i guess my comments were a little emotive, not to Worry CT us buggy lads are still there to catch your kite if you need a landing , and most of us kitesurf too .

who ever gets a record these days obviously deserves some respect though, if the buggy lads fall out at 125kmph the salt lake would rip them apart, not quite a splash down

52 knots isnt even 100 kmph is it ? If you want to drag out the Class "A" of water speed , the fastest human pulled across the water has done 251kmph . Id say who ever masters personal foil designs will instantly take a new world record for kite surfing its always interesting how new tech changes the rules of what is possible.

Seb hit a peak of over 60 knots at luderitz ...around 112 kph so he was hiking!
... I would be keen to see a much flatter higher aspect bow kite introduced just for speed use...but its still a minute market out there.... when you refer to personal foil design are you meaning hydrofoil/ body foil
or kite?

i can see potential in hydro foils , they are relativly new tech so i dont think we have scratched the surface yet. 60 knots is a huge leap !! go seb

yes i was thinking hydrafoil for kite surfers for speed. the big wave surfers have used these for there tow ins. they are supposed to be supper smooth and fast..... with the higher c of G crashing would be fun.

ps to my knowledge fastest landboarder is 46.5mph 75kph. i'm 20kph behind that. gona see how close i can get. and with the perfect conditions who knows might even be able to go faster...

Im fully going to have to get a gps and see how fast im getting on the mountain board... pretty sure ill be able to get some real good speed... Just not sure what kite to attempt it with..

a manta or flysurfer perhaps ?


i was thinking very small foils off the bottom of the deck / ski so you can get out of the water then ride on a very low surface area while holding side force , i guess a lower case t shaped foil so th ehoriz bit planes the surface and it still has a keel ?!?

I doubt any depowerable foil will give you any better speed on the water than a bow or hybrid SLE either. There is too wide a range of AoA control to adjust through and I know of no foil to date that could adjust like that except for perhaps the Arc's due to the higher anhedral.

Problem with hydrofoils is that the sizes used by the tow in guys which is just an 'Airchair' wing would cavitate going much faster than 60kph. Then a profile small enough to provide just enough lift at 100kph without cavitation would be supper twitchy without a control outrigger. A hydrofoil with to short a skeg will also suck in air form the surface causing immediate cavitation. That's why the put them on longer skegs with ridges to prevent air being sucked along the LE of them. Water is a bugger to design foils for compared to air.

zenon

attempt it with a depower kite. the killer (literally) is the lulls. your leaning right back to hold power, gusts aren't so bad as you gust slide more down wind, but on the lulls you almost fall off the back of the board. So.... the ability to powerup instantly is important.

ps 6m access is the ruler of high speed on the lanboard. i'm thinking 8m manta might be even better. now i just need to do some creative accounting to lay my hands on one.

why not just use a drag ski it is made to do 120 miles/hr, and not suck to the water

I that a 21"race boat some year back,we draged a 14 year old girl at 103 m/hr in the brigde to brigde race,she had more balls that all of us

A drag ski works with no lateral resistance... ie if we could kite straight downwind faster than the wind then yes this would work... Robbie Naish did try some boards that are similar in profile to the ski but the issue is we still need to run a bearaway course to go faster than windspeed!
Totally agree with guster... minature hydrofoils sound brilliant but won't work on a kite board...cavitation and chop would kill you... have watched an airpocket out the back of the fin that crept closer to the board as you powered past 40 knots till it reachs the board and caused immediate spinout.... the sheer size of Hydroptere and Vesta allow them to use foils and reduce wetted area hence drag to good result.... a kite speed board on flat water has about .15 + square metres of wetted area.... the hydrofoil/s would have to be less than that to start seeing a speed increase... so the compromise we sail in dead flat shallow water... minimising wetted area / drag
any foil is going to force you into deeper water = more chop = bigger foil = more drag
I think we will see a lot faster boards developed yet but I dont think they will utilise hydrofoils
But don't let that stop anyone trying!

THIS JUST IN , an account of what it takes to do 124 kmph

These guys were so lucky to get this kind of wind speed

"I'm just in from my trip to to NABX and was there the whole afternoon when on Ivanpah in the cranking winds and dust storms and saw Ozzy and Arjen going for the record. Mid day most people had cleared off the lake because of a light rain and wild winds and blinding dust storms. A small group of us had a bit of race holding kite bags, folding chairs and cushions to propel the buggies then the dutch team arrived back on the lake. With the dry lake you can down smaller on kites just because you accelerate so fast and don't loose andy speed at the end and just pick up more speed as you run out of room.
Ozzy went out for a run first on an XXtreme Apex and 2.2 m ReactorII - he's been out in higher winds before but came back with a run of 112kmh and was shaking and it scared the ******** out of him. Arjen then weighted up his Xxtreme buggy and did a run with the Reactor - leaving an incredible dust trail he disappeared into a wall of dust and sand half way across the lake. At this time there were only about 8 of us out there and we waited wheat seemed like forever for him to return and no sign of him. It was like waiting for a vehicle to re-enter from space. After a good 20 minutes we decided to mount a search and just then a glimpse of outline of buggy and kite came through the dust. He came back with a speed of 116kmh and then while trying to get a better angle to land the kite inn the high gusty wind the kite whipped around behind and ejected Arjen from the buggy and sent him tumbling a couple dozen meters before the kite was secured.
He was dusty but keen to go again but wanted to tweak the bridle to get it riding a bit further forward at speed. The intense winds eased up just a bit and it wasn't enough to get the smoking fast run going again so he came in and switched to the 3.3 spirit and as he took off the winds came on again and more people began to show up on the lake. He came back with a run of 121kmh. It was cheers all around and he gave out a whoop and turned to have another go at it. He went off like a bullet leaving one incredible rooster tail of dust following a speck screaming down the lake and that run netted out at 124km on the button showing on all 4 GPS mounted on the buggy.
Absolutely awesome to watch and able to share in the great moment.
Congrats to the whole team,
Mark , Canada "

Reactor 2.2 eh ? imagine a blurr 2.5 , imagine a pair of pants with the legs tied off for that matter !!

Jimmy22 wrote:


Well you'd have to do something clever with your pants seeing as how messing yourself at those speeds could have disastrous consequences to your traction.

Keeping on to the Reactor 2.2 then?

i think yourd need to insert some battens in the pants to offer aoa adjustment.

it was a reactor 2 , the euro boys got some early samples

the reactor 2 is gone from the garage already.. just reactor 3.8 left which is for sale.

What, they get to have all the fun! I couldn't figure out from all the reports whether it was a Reactor, Vapor or Spirit either.

We'll just have to get the Hulk-green Blur angry - you'll like it when it's angry!

yet to see my blurr 2.5m angry

I had her up in 15 knots and that was just a walk in the park for her at 68 km/h

love to throw her into 35 knot and watch the rage factor go up

I need to push my 84.6km/h PB up anyway,

it's sounds so slow when the world record is at 124km/h

Jimmy22's Blur might be getting a bit angsty not having been given a good fly yet... it wants to let the hulk-green out!

Tell me about it. But then some days it's all about the scenery. At least by June I'll be less tempted to hit the water and there'll be another pair of tracks on the beach trying to get over his PB.