Tried to make it through beach break and got broke. Blew out the leading edge of my Naish S25 5M - the entire circumference and even ripped up into the canopy. It was brutal. Took it to a guy who does kites, and he said it was the first and last time he was going to do a repair on one (this is a really solid guy - trustworthy - has been doing repairs for the kite community for years etc). His explanation made sense to me when I think about it.
Basically he said that compared to kites, the wings are very tightly engineered with a lot of sewing in a very small space. Seams are also over-sewn, again - relative to a kite because the wings see a lot more and a lot different types of stress. Pulling it apart and putting it back together took 3x more time than with a kite. It ended up costing me about $300 USD and the bladder was $100.
I know you guys are going to tell me I got over-charged etc. But I'm in NYC so labor here is pretty expensive. I'm only calling it out in case you were expecting your usual repair job. Canopy rip - sure, no problem, I can sew them myself. There was no way I was going to tackle that leading edge.
I've heard there's an outfit in Texas that will do it. I'm sure there's other places, but then you have to pay for shipping. Anyway, I guess the moral of the story is don't blow out your leading edge.
