The new Rebel – the designers point of view. By Ken Winner
The Rebel remains a 5-line kite, of course, all for all the usual reasons:
First of all for a short depower stroke and a crisp feel. Anyone who rides waves or has short arms or just likes a responsive kite can appreciate the importance of achieving full depower with a minimal movement of the control bar.
Second, the super stability. If it weren't so easy to keep it in the air, you'd be forgiven for thinking it's made of rock.
Third, easy relaunch in light winds. Even riders who like four-line kites often add a fifth line to make relaunch possible in super-light wind.
Fourth, safety. When you need to get total, complete and perfect depower in half a second, nothing else works as well as a 5th line.
Last but not least, the easy self-landing – for people who don't want to always depend on someone on the beach catching their kite. Not the safest way to do it, but possible.
Changes in detail:
Sizes 10 to 14 have been tuned for a very short bar stroke and a maximally crisp feel.
Sizes 6 to 8, which naturally tend to be a bit too crisp and responsive, have been tuned for a crispness and responsiveness that's just right. Not soft and slow; not uncomfortably harsh and fast.
9-meter kites can go either way, a bit slow and soft or a bit fast and harsh. We spent some time tuning this one for what we think is just the right feel in a versatile high performance freestyle kite.
Attention! Rebels work best when inflated to at least 6psi. They lose some performance at lower inflation pressures, but will still fly pretty well. By contrast, many kites on the market these days need 8 or 10 psi to fly correctly.
Aspects of the Rebel's overall geometry have not changed. There are still five struts, with the center strut being a floating strut for momentary depower and luffability. Segmentation is much the same from tip strut to tip strut.
Multiple segments through the center of the canopy give good profile fidelity, while one straight segment on each side gives a flat profile where it can do the most good in resisting unwanted luffing and flutter. Five struts give needed structure while allowing for good performance at low inflation pressures.
We kept the overall leading edge diameters fairly large right out through the tips to ensure rock-solid stability and tolerance of low inflation pressures.
The Rebel is a high performance freeride kite, so there's no need to try to minimize diameters at the expense of convenience, stability and easy relaunch. A profile of moderate depth gives Rebels excellent low-end power.
We've tuned the bar pressure for the solid feel and reassuring feedback that Rebel riders expect.
The moderately deep and moderately draft-forward profile gives the 2015 Rebel positive upstroke and smooth transit through the center of the wind window.
We have kept our more streamlined, semi-segmented struts from previous years. This gives us low weight and good flexibility.
The Rebel is a mature design with thousands of fans. No rider who likes the Rebel wants to see it change much, so our goal with the Rebel these days is to fine-tune details and ensure that each size works the best it can, for the type of riding it's best suited to.
Aside from free weights and wakeboarding boats, low weight is almost universally desired in sports products. For 2015 we've pared weight from the Rebel without reducing durability in any way.
Our wavy force spread canopy construction has been refined to involve less cloth and weight than in past years, and it has been extended to the tips. This gives good mitigation of flutter and flexing between the dissimilar materials -- hence better durability -- from kite tip to kite tip.
As always in kite design, you want to have the right shape stability and the right shape flexibility in all the right places. Keeping with that imperative, we went more flexible by slimming and tapering the struts a few years ago. Continuing the trend for 2015, we´ve gone even a little more flexible in the Rebel by removing the Cam Battens.
The trailing edge tension of the Rebel has been refined to reduce the potential for wrinkles and flutter while keeping the correct cone and cupping.
Overall, the Rebel stays a Rebel, still you´ll be surprised and impressed while testing it through al the sizes!