Ovando – the fastest kite in the world!
If the Ovando look like a little fighter jet in the air, it also feels like one. It´s got very urgent handling and it really darts in the sky!
Bar and set up:
The unique shape of the Ovando is obvious when you lay it out. It has a fairly straight trailing edge but swept back wingtips and the leading edge meets to a point in the middle. It does look more like a delta wing aircraft rather than a Delta kite and there is no other kite like it on the market. The build and finish will be familiar to EH riders: strong, unsleeved leading edge bridle, industrial strength, wear patches on the main tube, and an overall air of ruggedness rather than luxuriant finish. The bar is compact in the hands and has a rotating chicken loop which accommodates on of the front lines a total kill system. The other leashing option is to clip the leash to the chicken loop and the front line for suicide safety that still keeps you connected to the kite if you pull the pin. No one pump, no frills, just a kite, bar and lines.
The Ovando on the water:
If the Ovando looks like a little fighter jet in the sky, it also feels like one. It has very urgent handling and it darts around the sky and there is a very direct connection between the bar and kite: you pull or push and the kite turns. There is a nice tension to the bar, and the steering is light, urging you to throw the kite around. When you do, it picks up speed quickly and gets you trucking along superfast in no time. The Ovando has real throw around potential for shredding up and down waves, and the direct urgency makes jumping and transitions fast and exciting. Unhooked it´s a punchy little thing with a snappy kite loop on it; the canopy rockets back overhead so you get back under it early. Now the compromises: First up, relaunching is better achieved by reversing the kite; we found the Ovando didn’t just slide off to the edge like many new kites do. Secondly, on occasion we found the kite wasn’t super forgiving to the rider penduluming under the kite and there is the risk of the odd front stall.
Concluding the Ovando:
However, riders with good kite skills are unlikely to suffer the nose stall at all and this really is a kite that feels so much fun to keep throwing around. It´s an exciting kite to fly, feels very unique and unlike any other kite we´ve tested but it´s a very easy kite to get into and figure out. OK, so it’s not the smoothest flying canopy we´ve flown, and the chicken loop is still fairly agricultural looking bit of kit, but this isn’t a kite you´d put in a school or the hands on an unskilled beginner requiring a forgiving, slow mover and EH don’t promise anything that the Ovando can’t deliver. Where the Ovando wins is that not only is it huge fun when you´re throwing tricks with it, but just linking tricks up and riding from one move to the next is entertaining thanks to the super charged go cart handling. If your biggest fear in kiting is getting bored, this electric little kite could be the answer!
EH Ovando 7m review
So the day finally came, the wind was about 20-25 knots, quite gusty. A day like this i would normally go out with a 9m or even a 12m kite, but I thought it could be fun to see what this Ovando were capable of doing…
Once in the air I had major problems already from the beginning. This day was gusty and the wind was suddenly dropping for a short moment now and then. This is something that I normally doesn’t bother me, or rather the other kites I´ve been riding usually don’t give a fuck about gusts, they just shake a bit and the next second they’re ready to go again, this was not the case with the Ovando… I figured out that the Ovando is not a kite that is allowed to stand still, not even for a second. Gusts are literally spoken deadly for the Ovando. The Ovando has a very low angle of attack and also a flat profile. These two factors in combination with a quite low aspect ratio makes this kite one of its kind. The Ovando is super fast and the lift is incredible! My weight is 187 pounds and I was almost airborn a few times when I just was standing in the water! The backside of the low angle of attack and the flat profile is that the kite can’t handle gusts very well. Once the lines slack the kite will dive straight in the ground. So you really have to keep the kite in motion by all time, else you’ll crash it.
This day most people were riding 9’s. One guy was riding a Slingshot Fuel 13m. He was a bit over powered, but still. I never thought it would be able for me to ride with this 7m Ovando, but I thought that I might as well try since I had the kite up in the sky. To my big surprise I easily got up on the board with decent power. The kite is so fast so it´s a pleasure to ride this kite, making kite loops and quick turns was a piece of cake. Riding the Ovando was like driving Ferrari on the highway when everyone else is driving in slow motion!
Jumping was also possible this day, no mega jumps, but still good jumps considering my weight and wind speed. The fact that the kite is fast of course gives you the possibilty to increase the power in the kite by the induced wind you create by flying the kite like a mofo in the sky.
The bar
I would say that the bar is ok. The depower strap is easy to reach, and the bar is quite comfortable. The lines felt a bit thin, but perhaps are they super strong. I´ll soon try this kite again when it’s blowing more, I really look forward to explore the jumping capabilities of this beast and we’ll then see if the lines will hold or not. I think they will, it´s probably just that I´m used to more reinforced lines, such as those on the Slingshot RPM.
Overall
The Ovando is definitely not a beginner kite, but if you learn to master it I think the Ovando is a really fun kite! Lightning fast and totally different to all these low aspect “toy kites” that you can park in the sky which can be nice sometimes, but maybe not so fun. The wind range is also a big plus. I think this 7m Ovando is equal to a 9m bowkite.
Video
Stay tuned more the next review 🙂
EH Ovando 9m review
I had a short session on a EH Ovando 9m today. It was one of those days when I normally wouldn’t even bother to pump my 12m c-kite, but since this was a one time opportunity I thought that it wouldn’t hurt to see what this Ovando was capable of. To my surprise it went well to ride with my 139cm board and I soon realized that I there was no need for this huge board, so I switched to my 131cm board. At the same time the wind picked up a little and I had one of my most powerful sessions ever, I even had to pull the depower strap a little bit!
Hard to say how much is was blowing, but I think I started with only 5 m/s and probably around 8 m/s at the end of the session.
Didn’t evaluate the kite when it comes to water relaunch, jumping etc since I was busy handling the power, but I hope to be able to find that out soon.
I´m not the guy that hype kites and I´m usually quite critical to kites in general, if there is nothing special about them, then I don’t see the reason to come up with things such as easy water relaunch, good bar grip, nice colors, one pump system, just to make the kite sound descent. But this time I don’t feel that I´m exaggerating when I say that this is the most powerful 9m kite I ever tried!
I think this 9m Ovando can be compared to any average 11m kite and this 9m Ovando is perfect for me a day with descent wind and my weight is 85kg. So if you consider buying an Ovando I would suggest you to go one or two sizes smaller than you planned to.
Good wind!
/EH kiter
EH Ripper – the kite for experts!
Eric Hertsens is the man behind EH-kites. Eric started to kitesurf 1997, but he wasn’t satisfied with kite gear that were available on the market at that time and so he started to modifiy and improve the kites that he used back then. People got interested in Eric’s modifications and more and more people asked for his help to make modifications on their own kites. This was the reason to why Eric launched his own company EH in year 2000.
Today is three different EH kites available on the market, Ripper, Beast and Ovando. Ripper is probably the most common of the three and it is known for its high performance in gusty strong wind where it’s stable and still very quick and fast in responsiveness. Furthermore, the Ripper is very powerful and the lift is unbelievable, simply a beast when it comes to high jumps! Ripper has been released in six different version. v6 is the newest version for year 2010. EH plans to develop a new 12M Ripper kite for 2011, but they say that they don’t really see they point with a larger kite partly since the V6 ripper has a huge wind span, (see the image below), partly because the 10M Ovando performs so extremely well, that it’s hard to make an even better kite.
