Tim Harper | Blog

I’ve had the bandit 3 for just under two months now, and can say that it really is a superb kite. I used to ride slingshot fuels, so the need for direct input on the bar, and quick turning speed were essential in a new kite for me. A few highlights of the kite’s performance that set it apart from anything else I’ve ever flown:

1. The pull  from the bandit 3 remains consistent throughout the entire window, the fuels have a very definite sweet spot below 12o’clock and it will slow down as it gets to the edge of the window. This means that when I jump on the new bandit 3, the upward motion is never a jerk upwards, it’s always a very smooth, floaty lift, and then it’s always a smooth float down too.

2. Turning speed, the bandit 3 that I have is a 7m, so it should be quick anyway, but this thing turns on an absolute dime, beating the 2008 fuels I own hands down.

3. Wind range, I’ve been out in 18knots and been happily riding upwind on the bandit 3, and then I’ve also been out in 35knots and been ok too, (just depower and hold on!!). The low end is seriously impressive and this kite will see me through most of the Cape Town wind that we get.

So to give a balanced review I need to mention the two things that I don’t enjoy about the bandit 3…

1. The lines are cheap and nasty – I’m not sure how long they will last, but they really do feel a lot thinner than any other’s I’ve owned.

2. I need to depower to unhook – riding comfortably when I’m on full power on the depower rope, I’ve found that I need to depower if I want to unhook, I’ve also found that when I do unhook the kite is very responsive still, so any tiny tweak sends the kite off into the water, or back to 12o’clock

Overall a fantastic kite, and it is the 3rd generation so F-One has obviously made some improvements along the way. I’ll have to send it through a wave or two to test the construction, but I’d rather not do that for the purposes of a review…

f-one_bandit_3_most_wanted

Tofo Mozambique is an amazingly beautiful place, right near the inhambane peninsula / lagoon but on the indian ocean side, it’s Africa though so be prepared for the heat, the mozzies and the 2M beer!

Here’s a brief run down of the kiting that I managed to get done in Dec 09:
We were there for around 10 Days, and 3 of them were kiteable with a 14m, this is not the windy season so it’s to be understood. There was almost no swell at all either, so some nice flat sections between the waves. The light 10-12knot wind was from the East, so onshore too which made things a bit more difficult to get out for some, but I still managed to get out beyond the breakers. According to Rowan from tofo kite the wind is a lot better from the NE and SW, though to me it looked as though NE would be best suited for cross on conditions. The SW would have to come over a large hilly section of land before it hit the main beach.

There are three main spots:
Tofo main beach, which is right in front of Tofo town with loads of restaurants and a fairly large sand bar creating a super flat spot on the inside, though because it was busy holiday season this was full of swimmers. There is also a few dive charter boats and fishing boats going in and out of the beach but not enough to get in the way.
Tofinho point, this is a fairly famous surfing spot with a sick looking right hander, the beach is mainly rocky reef right on the point and then there’s a flat reef that runs the whole way up the beach towards Tofo. Sketchy launch apparently, so not many guys kite it.
Barra, this is north of Tofo and will have a good cross shore on an Easterly if you are on the northerly part of the peninsula, this runs all the way into the lagoon. Otherwise it’s also good on a NE (apparently).
The water was nice and warm, round 23-25deg celcius, so boardies and a rashy all the time, just watch out for the blue bottles and jellyfish, they give a mean old sting, but taking a piss on it takes out most of the burn.

We stayed at Turtle Cove, a Surf and Yoga Lodge / Camp Site – We were very unimpressed by the accommodation though, I’ll post the open letter of complaint to them here when we have put it together.

Tim

So I first read about this story here:

First Story

And then got a few more links sent to me about this story:
Second Story

Which was probably prompted by the huge response to it trending on Twitter:

Twitter Trend

And many other sites mentioning it:
Mashable

Reuters

Classic.
Follow Winston here:
Winston