CrazyFly Sculp 9m 2011
Reviews / Kites
41,705
At A Glance
Crazy Fly have been one of the more prominent board manufacturers for some time. When we heard they were expanding their range to include kites, naturally we were excited. 2011 sees a range of three kites, the Sculp which we have here, the MooWii which is a 3 strut Delta shaped user friendly kite and the Slash which is there freestyle weapon. The Sculp is a high performance supported leading edge design that is meant to be used for freestyle and freeride. It’s a 4 line bridled affair with just 3 struts to keep it light. Whilst it is aimed at the performance end of the market it has also been designed to be very easy to fly and ride. The Crazy Fly bar is well thought out and utilises a below the bar depower system with integrated clam cleat. The loop is nice and big for unhooking and you can tune the rear lines too. The kite is well made, with reinforcement in the right places; the materials used are solid enough, although we would have liked to have seen some beefier material used in the reinforcements. That said the Sculp is aimed at a price point and if you want the exotic materials on your kite, then as we all know you end up paying for them.
In The Air
Right out of the bag the Sculp was easy to set up and easy to fly, it felt stable in the window and when you put some input into the bar it was easy to get the kite cranking around where you wanted it to be. Jumps were good, although the timing took a little getting used to, it is so quick you have to redirect a little earlier than you would normally. Once we were dialled in we were getting some great hangtime though and the Sculp just seemed to want to go bigger. We rode it a fair bit in the waves and it performed flawlessly here too. The fast direct handling making it easy to tuck yourself into the sweet spot on the wave with just the right amount of power. Upwind ability is excellent and we didn’t have any problems blasting back to where we had started in the line up. We did find the chicken loop mechanism rubbed on your hands a bit if you are used to having them right in the centre of the bar. You’ll need to move them out a centimetre or two to avoid this. Relaunch was very quick and we didn’t have any problems getting the Sculp airborne when we did crash it.
For
Well priced, fun to fly kite. Easy to use, great jumps and very fast and direct.
Against
Built a little lighter than some brands, but that is echoed in the price. It’s still plenty tough and should offer value for money.
Overall
A great first effort at building a freeride kite from Crazy Fly, we are looking forwards to getting out on it a little more, but more importantly if they have started this well we are looking forward to how they develop as a kite brand over the years to come.
This review was in Issue 27 of IKSURFMAG.
For more information visit CrazyFlyRelated
By Rou Chater
Rou has been kiting since the sports inception and has been working as an editor and tester for magazines since 2004. He started IKSURFMAG with his brother in 2006 and has tested hundreds of different kites and travelled all over the world to kitesurf. He's a walking encyclopedia of all things kite and is just as passionate about the sport today as he was when he first started!
