First time on the 21

Forecast looked promising in the morning, but as it does so often in summer, it had changed by lunch time. I thought I'd go down the lake and have a static play with the Speed3 21. When I arrived, the competition was still on but there was no wind - everyone was standing around … waiting. There was a wind meter up on a stick too - reading less than 5 knots.
Waited around for a while and the wind picked up to 5 to 6 knots - the race boys tried to do their thing but it was a bust … summer winds are gutless. 17m Edges were falling out of the sky.

Patience is a virtue and it paid off - the thermal moved in around 4pm. As soon as I saw the "blow line" moving in, I got changed and grabbed the Speed3 21 and my Flyboards ... headed down the other end of the beach and set up ...

Side launch, kite goes up fine, takes longer than the Speed2 to fill ... I was expecting that. No drama otherwise. Hit the water ... oh here we go, it's like the Psycho4 - wants to backstall when the bar is hauled in. Needs to be sheeted out to be allowed to accelerate ... it feels like the Silberpfeil but it's not. Walk a bit, wind picks up a bit, it gets better.

A kiter is way the hell out west on the lake and is in trouble - I can see him winding up his lines so I head back into the beach, tell Soh to get help and walk past the windmeter for a quick shufti ... 12 knots pretty steady. I'm easily going upwind on the Flydoor.

I keep riding, feeling my way with the new Speed. It's fast - damn fast! Builds a lot of speed, probably easier than the 2 ... I'm out-pacing everybody. I turn that speed into upwind angle ...
Try out some jumps ... load'n'pop are orbital maneuvers. Back rolls turn into multiple spins - there so much lift! I even land some front rolls cos I've so much time to get around ...
Big jumps ... I get the hang time but on the way down, the kite is backstalling and I'm being dumped into the water. If I time the redirection right, the moving kite makes more lift for a gentle landing but something seems wrong here ... something needs a tune!

Doing front rolls on the Flydoor proves to be a too much for the crappy Flyboards straps - I rip the right foot strap out of the mount ... have to ride in strapless on one foot. Feels odd but I handle it ok :D swap to the Flyradical and whaddya know - it's no problem to ride! I'm making upwind easy and it's fun to throw around.

Sun is starting to set so I call it a night. Reverse land the kite - no problems, nice soft touch down - and my new FSer buddy helps me secure it. We have a chat and he takes photos of the only 21 in Japan :o Good day, glad I went ...!

Moment of the Day was discovering the the Speed3 had so much lift that 'regular' back rolls turn into multiples ... no it wasn't - it was doing a big, fat, slow, lazy front roll and landing perfectly, riding away like a champ!

Wind speed was recorded as 7.4 knots to 8.8 with a gust of 16.2 - you and I know that ain't right cos I saw the wind meter at the shore line about 4:30pm. If the wind meter was wrong then it was pretty good outcome for the Speed3!

What I learned today ...
• Speed3 makes more lift than the 2 but has a little less bottom end.
• That might be just my inexperience with the Triple Depower.
• Seems to backstall really easy ... even when jumping - I got dumped outa the sky as the kite stalled. That ain't right.
• So I need to check line stretch and might just be my inexperience with blah blah blah
• Just cos only 2 people are kiteboarding, doesn't mean that the competition is over - stay out of the zone.
• The above is embarrassing.