Eolo Radsail Savage 5.5M

Well as every time I log on to Racekites I feel I'm being ticked off for not having written a review I thought I had better get writing. It just happens that this weekend I have something to review, and it looks like the first review for this kite. If somebody told me I'd be flying (or reviewing) a radsail I wouldn't have answered politely. But here I am. Actually I was after a Scrub Vapour, thinking about starting to board to make use of the smaller flying sites closer to home. I found one on Ebay as part of a kite/board/lid package which I won for 200 quid. So I paid full price for the Vapour and a 30 squid lid and got a £240 kite gratis. Well you never heard such a drawn out excuse for someone owning a Radsail!!

So... I've got a new kite, and if you've got a new kite it ain't staying in the bag too long. As luck would have it I managed to get two outings in this weekend.

Saturday: Turned up at Camber Sands nine am ish. The wind was cross/onshore and blowing a goodun. Couldn't say exactly how fast as the battery had died in my meter but it was strong enough to blow the buggy down the beach on it's own. It must have been quite amusing to see me try to step into a buggy that wasn't there anymore. Anyway I'm still pretty much of a novice so after half an hour of scudding the Savage went back in the bag and out came faithful 2.5m Bullet and carried on buggying up and down (mostly down) the beach until the tide came in. I then moved on to Greatstone. The wind there was offshore, lumpy and much lighter so out came the Savage again. I must say it handled it well. My 5m Sammy doesn't like lumpy winds so in comparison I was impressed that this kite behaved so well. Didn't get long on it as the tide was approaching and being offshore I didn't want to get the new kite wet!

Sunday: Took the long drive down to Camber again watching every flag, every twig and every loose bit of paper on the wondering where the bloody wind had gone. Got there, parked up, walked over the shingle bank and there it was 13 knots (new battery) Does it to me every time. It was more cross shore this time but still quite clean. Back out with the Savage. With the buggy it was great, plenty of pull, smooth, fairly fast, turned well and was good upwind. As it was cross shore buggy runs were very short so gave me a chance to practice turns, and had a good session of about two and a half hours before the wind dropped and I packed up.

So after a couple of sessions and a mixed bag of conditions this is my opinion of the Radsail Savage 5.5:

- The bag is nothing special, has a waterproof zip, no pouch for drinks etc and the pouch it does have it too small to be that useful.

- The handles and lines.... Tossed them and used Flexi lines and Ozone handles and killers.

- Build quality of the kite is good, better than I expected. As with most kites it has Velcro tag for lines and Velcro zips for emptying sand etc.

- Colours and design are ok, not particularly special, just my opinion.

- I was more than pleased with how it flew, good pull, smooth, stable, turned well, fairly quick and fairly lifty. Very good with the buggy.

- One thing I didn't like was the golf ball sized knots to tie the lines to, they are so big they sometimes hook on to the other bridles spinning the kite out of control. These are definitely going before the next session!!

The Savage 5.5m isn't a blade but for £240 it's a good effort and might be out of the bag more often than the 5m Sammy.

By : WhiteSquall