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RAL INN said..
I read this post a couple days ago, so yesterday decided to go way out back to see.
my first thought was that the swell as I denote it from a wave break, runs totally with the wind.
given I had maybe 14kts of wind and the swell around here runs about 12kts.
It was all about kite drift once on the swell and my Std Spitfire wings were plenty powered and no problems out running wave but still stuck with very little line tension to turn kite. This sort of limited me to only running the directions I started with.
these were not big swells but still more than enough to get lift.
personally more wind to keep line tension is a desirable thing.
plus you travel some big distance in short time.
In that instance rip cross swell, looping like a maniac while transitioning. You can also do an opposite slingshot type move where you loop the kite in the opposite direction that you a going. Keeps the line tension and you can go deep downwind.