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Peter Lynn Guerilla II 13
The Guerilla II from Peter Lynn is a bridle-less, self inflated twin-skin foil which can be used for kitesurfing (it is water relaunchable), snowkiting and landboarding. Very few kites are suitable for all these activities. It is designed with a very high aspect ratio and is renowned for giving good upwind performance and huge amounts of lift.
Supplied With (when purchased new):
Bag/Kite/Control Bar/T-Shirt,Manual,Video |
Available Colours:
Gold, Royal Blue, Red, Green and Yellow |
Manufacturer's Web Site:
http://www.peterlynnkiteboarding.com (if available) |
Online Kite Manual:
http://www.peterlynnkiteboarding.com/pdf/TSmanual.pdf (if available) |
Target Usage:
All Rounder |
Additional Notes:
This baby now comes with a rucksack instead of a long tube as with the original Guerillas - this is possible because of folding tip spars. PL also claim to have made some changes to the design which reduce the chances of the lines wrapping around the tips and improve the ease of a water relaunch... PLUS there's a new deflation zip which allows for easier packing up.
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Reviews
A Peter Lynn Guerilla II 13 review by Pea:
Got back from the beach a bit frustrated and the wind seemed to have filled in so went to the park. the wind was a bit light so was playing on my 18 for a while, the wind was smooth and not gusty but after a while started to gust a bit and was consistantly going above about 18 kts.
wahey i thought out it comes.
i will cover the accessories later and just go for the kite now. flying on 27 m lines and a 60cm pl bar. i didnt bother waiting for full preinflation and it took off no bother, looked like it was goijng to have a problem then just settled down, wind was quite gusty at the time. parked the kite and just watched it reacting to the gusts which it did well and did not transfer a lot of the force to me, sheeted in is a different story and the gusts pull hard. one thing of note now is the upwind performance is noticeable in where the kite flies overhead and to the side.
onto the board then. the first really big thing is the speed the kite turns at which meant i was doing ay little powerstrokes to get the kite turned back up in time. i quickly learned this was not neccessary and you can hammer it at the ground, turn it real hard at the bottom with little loss of power and your board speed is there in one sweep and you can lock it out. the feel of the kite is very good and you know just how much to sheet in or out. the normal method of turning fully sheeted and then sheeting out to let the kite accellerate like the g1 still stands but this is where another difference stands out. the speed of the kite whilst not silly fast is bloody quick and as such you can devlop power by sining in a way you could not with the g1.
jumps
right now this will upset people but if you are thinking of getting one of these and u r primarily on land forget it unless you like flying. now i know what your thinking, you can never get enough air can you. this kite lifts and is fast and has the potential to spank you. i was being very conservative about jumping as the wind was full of holes and gusty now but every time you fly this thing over head you will leave the earth. end of story. on the planned jumps i went higher than was comfortable in the conditions over land. be carefull with redirection as i got it wrong once and came down hard and fast, as in kiteloop fast. also good are the wake style jumps, hops or whatever you want to call them. you can slightly oversheet the kite which pulls it back a bit and develops good waky style traction. occaisionally on landing the kite will flatten out and drift back but as soon as you carve away from it the kite develops pull again.
apparent wind
something i saw as a problem with the g1 was the fact that if you were at the top end of the windrange, once you got the board speed up it was very hard to out edge or depower the kite. this seems to be better with the new one though i cant honestly say i was maxed out but when you edge hard you can see the kite move forward and deppower.
self landing
no prob as with g1. deflate dipper makes life easier but bizzarely the normal zipper is one of those airtight/ water tight jobbbies and the deflate one is a normal zip (after thought anyone). the folding battens are i think unneccesary on this size as they are smaller than the g1 and mine will stay in but hey the choice is there and certainly for air travel is a good option if not taking a board.
line length
i flew on 27m lines but the g arcs are really sensitive to line length and a lot of windranges can be covered with two kites and a few sets of lines, try an 18 on 15m lines and you will see what i mean. depending on the site i tend not to fly long or short lines on land as it inconveniences other people to fly long lines and short ones are normally too short.
overall
the kite is a different beast to the g1. the only thing it has in common really is the shape and style. if upgrading from a g1 then it is a godsend as all the little things that were wrong with that kite have been corrected and a chunk of performance added. the kite flies faster and turns harder than the old kite with the big thing being it does not stall in the turns. it loops way better than the old kite ( not an airborne kite loop just a loop) and still has all the old stability of the g1. the tradeoff ( has to be one eh) is that hte kite is happiest on the move which is no prob for most users but the kite will overfly and stall if held statically and depowered. i think this fits in nicely where pl puts this kite.
the g1 is the middle ground and goes from decent beginner to good.
the bomba sits well with the novice and goes to good intermediate/ wakestyler.
the g2 sits at intermediate and above. this is mirrored from stuff i have seen on pl website and there was a graphic to illustrate this.
obviously everyone will make their own mind up what they want and there is a tendency for every one to want the top kite (i will grow into it) hopefully we will get the chance to fly back to back with the bomba tomorrow (comments richard) and it will all be clearer but i think this is an inappropriate kite for people coming into the sport (kitesurfing) as they will struggle initially to edge against the kite and will feel it has no power as it will be waiting for them at the edge of the window. i think that this is a real inroad to inflatable performance which a few of us thought the g1 was anyway, but i really think we will start seeing these kites in comps and at the highest levels, there are just too many advantages to ignore anymore.
roll on the wind tomorrow so we can see it in the surf.
ancills
the bag
well all you frenzy lovers who thought the frenzy bag was the best thing since sliced raw toast (personally i thought it was utter crap, mountaineering backround) the backpack you get with the g2 and i assume the bombas is good. it has good contoured straps with camelback tubes, it is extendable to accomodate the kite with battens and i found some extra compression straps today to carry a snoboard ( i think a mtb would be pushing it a bit from a comfort point of view) the bag still does up with a zip but the compression straps take the strain off the zip. bottom line is you have a useable everyday daysack on top of your kite and it is worth deducting this when thinking of hte price ( my kite now lives in the bag with the 18 and the day sack is my hand baggage.
pl bar
nice carbon bar with floats and webbing and plastic buckle depower, front line leash and releasable chicken loop.
the bar is middle of the road weight wise and you could lose the floats if weight is an issue. the hole is in the bar as opposed to a bolt on extra. there is an insert which i would assume is stainless to prevent wear on the carbon.
i see th e floats as unneccesary but will leave them on as they do no harm. the safety works flawlessly with qr on the chicken loop and the leash. the system is designed to work with a pl spinning bar but works other wise, you just have to balance your loops out to prevent leash tangles.
plastic buckle depowers i am not a fan of as they slip, that said i am 18 stone so if ur a lighter this may not be an issue but i see a clam cleat as the only option here. the depower rope seems to be wearing quickly, this may just be roughing up only time will tell.
lines
the cyclone lines supplied with pl kites are beyond description, in their favour they dont seem to stretch with use but that is the only good thing i can say about them. it is counter productive to slag kit of but they are utter crap.
Pea, 06/04/2004
A Peter Lynn Guerilla II 13 review by KiteFan:
This review is all about using this kite for landboarding. I've not yet made it onto the water.
The review above this one covers most things, but I feel there's a few additional things to note.
I've come to this kite from an original Guerilla 13 and have also been flying a GII-9 a little while. I had certain expectations of it
and my initial reaction was not good. All the ancillary changes are as expected, and greatly received. The new rucksack is great,
the folding spars are great, the deflatation zip is great, but I really feel that the ability to do jumps at the lower wind range is reduced
somewhat since the G1.
Peter Lynn's official line is that "this kite is more rear-bridled to give it more grunt for kite surfing, if you want an Arc to use on land, get a Phantom".
I found this a little annoying as everything I'd read prior to purchasing this kite seemed to suggest that it had more low end and top end than the G1-13 but
initially I didn't find this to be the case. If you've not flown a Guerilla 1 13 then you won't know that if you let the bar all the way out while the kite is straight
downwind of you, pointing up the window, then it would rocket up with great speed if you resisted it a little. Similarly, when charging along on a land board
if you throw it back and sheet right out, it fires back and up giving you really easy and floaty jumps in very little wind at all, just by converting board and kite
speed into vertical lift. With the G2-13 (not so with the GII-9 which mirrors this high speed behaviour when sheeted out) it has a tendency to sit a bit further
back in the window. I had races with my old G1, starting with both kites directly downwind and pointing up, then simultaneously sheeting right out (so the
back lines went slack) and resisting - the G1 won hands down, even if I ran backwards with the G2. This worried me.
I complained about this on a few forums, and also about the fact that in a light rain and 12mph winds, the kite just didn't work at all, it just sat at 45 degrees
to the horizontal and wouldn't climb. I was advised to give it some time and give it a go in some stronger winds.
Some time has now passed and I've had a good while with this kite now and my opinion has changed a little. I've had it out in winds above 15 and found a
slightly different technique to get jumps with the board. Having another go with the original G1-13 made me realise that actually this is a better kite. Despite
the loss of jumping ability in the 12 to 15mph range. The G2 is much more responsive from 15 upwards, it turns faster and has more usable bar range while both
front and back lines are tight, which makes you fell more connected and more in control. I'm now able to boost higher and floatier jumps with this than I ever
was with the G1 in the same winds, so long as it's blowing a bit. I don't think I'd go back.
I'm also finding that the top end of this kite is more than I thought. Previously I've switched to the GII-9 whenever the wind got above about 18 or 20mph, but so
long as the wind isn't TOO gusty (which it usually is where I fly!) it's actually fine to more like 25mph - perhaps more when I get more used to it. Above that and the GII-9
comes out. I love the GII-9, but have better sessions in the 15 to 20 range with the GII-13 due to the incredible floatiness of the jumps.
So, it's a story with a happy ending really - I do really like the Guerilla IIs and find them very forgiving, safe and simple. I prefer them to the Ozone Frenzy for land boarding
any day due to their much greater float and incredible, world beating, stability... but I'm stuck below 15mph. Very recently I've found I can get going in less than 15, but it's an effort,
and with summer well on the way, I NEED something that will let me boost nice floaty jumps in the lower summer winds. So, despite being totally converted to Arcs, and having sold
all of my bridled foils (Frenzy, Bullet, Blade) I am now completing my quivver with a Flysurfer Psycho2 13 which I hope to be able to have fun with in the 8-15mph range. If it
performs exceptionally well, even in my local gusty winds, to over 20, then maybe the GII-13 will go, but I very much doubt it. I'll let you know.
KiteFan, 24/05/2004
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