Andy from SOS Surf just flew to Egypt for the RRD new releases - read on from Andy:


For the past two years RRD had held their annual meeting in La Mourne in Mauritius, which gave John and myself a chance to kite the cross-offshore barrels of One-Eye and Manowa. This year they held the event in Marsa Alam, Egypt.




While there was definitely going to be no surf, and the google map of the hotel looked like some Al-Qaeda training camp, I was still keen to go and try out all the 2009 equipment, and catch up with the whole RRD crew including Richib Rodirguez Gonzalez (AKA Richie), the team rider who came out to WA last summer and rocked out kitestock with us.

Richie and Marc
Richie and Marc (SOS Instructor) at Kitestock, moments before Richie went kiting and left my car window open. Anyone who has kited at Dongara knows how devastating this can be.

GETTING THERE

Anyway, after flying from Perth to Singapore, then to Cairo, suffering mild culture shock, then a domestic flight to Hurghada, all that was left was the 3 hour taxi ride to the hotel, just south of Marsa Alam. When driving south there is the Red Sea on your left, and NOTHING on the right for 300km. Every now and again there was a super resort on the left, catering to European tourists. And in between each of these there was another super resort either half finished or half demolished, it was hard to tell. I found out later during my tour of Cairo that there's a tax loophole in Egypt where unfinished buildings are taxed less.

Straight ahead (South):


To the left:




I ended up having to pay the taxi driver a heap more than the initial quote (there's all these add-on costs, like tipping!) But it didn't matter, because I was just so pleased to finally get there. This particular hotel was chosen by RRD probably because predominantly Italian. This gave me a chance to see more hairy chests and tight budgy smugglers than I cared for. It also made me a bit of an English speaking stranger.




















THE CONDITIONS

We got wind every day, so after all my whinging about the journey and hotel, it was all worth it. The wind would crank in at about 20-25knots at 8am each morning, and hang around until lunch time when it would ease off into the afternoon.

That gave us a chance to ride every kite size from 5 -15m at some stage through out most days; perfect for testing.

The water would be really flat at low tide, and like river chop at high tide. This was due to the outside reef providing shelter from the red sea swells. I tried to ride the waves off the outside reef one day, and although I've ridden extremely small waves at Leighton..

 
... the waves at Marsa Alam were really not worth worrying about.


Aside from the RRD crew (about 20 people on the water at any one time) there was only one other guy there. He was probably pretty disaapointed because he would have had the place to himself if it wasn't for us! There is a school there with three instructors running lessons each day, in case you were thinking of taking your partner there and getting them involved!
Marsa Alam RRD Conference 2008There was a 20m limestone reef between the beach and the water (you can clearly see this on the google map). At hightide you could ride over this, but at low tide you would have to walk very carefully over it.

This was a little annoying seeing as how we there to test lots of different kites and boards, so every time you wanted to switch it meant another tip toe over the reef. Booties were recommended, but no one really bothered. I saw an incident where a rider accidently unhooked while riding over the ankle deep reef. The kite looped, the guy went flying and had one hard, sharp landing before he could activate the safety. Sorry, no photos of that one!

The beach itself was less soft sand, and more like building site rubble! I didn't see anyone launch themselves, it wouldn't be healthy for any kite.

THE NEW GEAR:
This was the reason for my visit, to prepare ourselves for the 2009 range of products from RRD. They have a great new windsurfing range coming out, but for this article I'll concentrate on the kite and board range coming.

They have three kites for this season, The Passion, HyperType2 and Obsession.
The Passion is a delta kite (a shape like the F.One bandit, with its leading edge swept back all the way to the trailing edge). It is a pleasure to fly. One of the few kites to really get the perfect amount of bar pressure. Not too light, but not too heavy to make kiting a pain in the arms. Just the right amount of tension and heaps of feel.

The delta shape makes the Passion the easiest possible kite to relaunch. Even without pulling on a back line it will often roll to one edge of the window. We will definitely put this kite in our school as it ticks all the boxes of relaunch, safety, windrange and stability.

The Passion boosts and hangs really well. It is stable and reliable at the high end and low-end of its wind range. Compared to RRDs of the past its got the most powerful low-end ever. This means it's very grunty and you could probably use one kite size lower than a normal kite.

The HyperType2 is a kite that was released during our winter, so it's already proven itself in the European summer. The kite is certainly the best hang time kite I've ever used. While Sebastian Garet (RRD Team, KPWT winner) uses this kite unhooked for freestyle (and win the KPWT 2007), I loved it hooked in for wave riding and boosting. It's fast enough for wave riding, but with much better upwind than the Type9 (2008), and lets be honest, the better you are upwind, the more waveriding you get to do! It's actually better upwind and jumping than any other kite I've used, ever, but that's what we should expect with kite designs still progressing each year.

The bridle is extremely simple like a Type9 or HyperType1. The bar is the same bar as the Tyep9, simple and clean, with a large chicken loop hole, made from solid metal, and plastic coating on the chicken loop. Both Niall Barrat and myself used only one bar (each!) for every session last season, and didn't need to replace a single chicken loop.
(more reviews here www.kiteforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&;t=2345677&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&start=30)

The third kite for this season is the Obsession. This may as well have been called the Type10, as it's a direct progression from the Type9. Anyone who's flown the Type9 now knows what to expect; a super fast turning kite, that drives through a turn without any dead spots. This year it's a little faster helped by its slightly wider bar. The chicken loop rope has a longer throw, giving it even more depower for that crucial, powered up, bottom turn.

We'll have demos of all three kites available, the HyperType2 and the Obsession almost immediately. The Passion will be available probably by August.