Best Best Trainer

Having just moved to a new apartment on the beach, (in New Zealand), I was looking for something I could do on the beach other than just walk and watch the surfers. It did not take me too long to find out that Christchurch is a sort of Mecca for kitesurfers here on the South Island, and after watching both the kitesurfers and landboarders, I decided I had to give it a go.

My original intention was aimed at getting into Kitesurfing, so I looked at the dedicated trainers from some of the kitesurfing companies. The Best brand has a bit of a bad name with some kitesurfers, they either love them or hate them, but as far as I was concerned, they were reasonably priced which is a major factor for me.

So I paid my money and took my chance and not long after a crisp 2 foot long package landed on my doorstep. Not more than an hour later I was being draged across the beach in a stiff 10 knot breeze.... It was love at first fly, and I have been out in all sorts of conditions ever since.

The Best Trainer is an 18 cell foil with 3 sets of vents on the leading edge. It appears to be of good constructions as far as I can tell being a bit of a noob, but it is made of ripstop, has some quality mesh over the vents and comes with colour coded 25m lines and a 55cm bar. Out of the bag it comes as a 2-line setup, but the front and back bridles are seperated and could easily be converted to a 4-line kite, (my next project I think). The kite itself has a tasteful Red canopy with the Best Kitebording flying fish logo in black, and a white underside. As it is aimed at the learner market, it has 'Trailing Edge' and 'Leading Edge' marked very clearly in the appropriate places on the underside, and colour-coded Left and Right markings to make sure you don't make any mistakes.

This ensures that setup is a breeze in itself, except for those ocassions that I manage to tangle the bridle, but I have worked out a process to minimise that. On the beach it takes less than 10 mins to set up, and in a 6-10 knot wind, it rockets to the zenith with quite some pull.

In a good breeze the kite is very stable and is easy to control once your biceps have gotten used to the power generated by this little kite. Being a small kite it's speed across the wind window can be a little frightening on ocassions and you have to have some good reactions to stop those unwanted visits to the sand. I am not a small guy, (100kgs+), and in any wind over 10 knots I can easily scud along the beach, and pop a few small jumps. I have had to go out and get a waist harness and a fixed loop for those blowy 12-15 knot winds, otherwise I would have had my arms ripped out of the socket. When the wind is running at less than 6 knots I have some difficulty getting it up into the air, and I have noticed that it will start to fold at the edge of the wind window.

The promotional blurb put out by Best says that this trainer has the power to be used for landbaording and snow kiting, and I don't doubt it for a second. I have an MBS Comp 16 Pro on order and I feel pretty confident that I will have no problem powering it with the Best Trainer on those higher wind days.

On the downside, I did manage to put a 2 inch rip the canopy within a week of owning it, but this was more down to my inexperience, and trying to fly the kite at high tide, (meaning I crashed heavily into the driftwood). I have since effected a good solid repair with some strong sail tape. Best do have a 30-day unconditional warranty, but I could not bear to be 'kite-less' for the 2-3 weeks it would have taken to replace. I chalked that one up to experience, and at least I know how to do a mean repair job.

I also have a problem with sand getting inside some of the cells, particually the extreame wingtips, but with a bit of a firm shake I seem to be able to get most of it out. As the kite is currently setup as a 2-liner, I seem to scoop up a fair amount of the beach trying to effect some sort of reverse take-off, which is quite tricky.

My final gripe is that I snapped a line a couple of days ago, which seriously put a dent in my kite-flying obsession. I have a feeling that the lines were probably only rated for 110kgs, and I was flying it hard in a strong 15 knot and pulling 10 foot scuds up the beach. With the kite locked into my harness and my not insignificant weight on the other end, something had to give... I will use this as an excuse to get funding appoved my financial controller, (my girlfriend), to upgrade to 4-lines and a new bar....

So all in all I'm loving it...... and even more than that, it has ignited an all consuming interest in all things 'kite'. I am now looking to round out my quiver with a 5m & 7m set of foils and spend the rest of my southern hemisphere winter landboarding along 15kms of perfect hard sand beach....

By : spiglord