There's many a kiter out here with a lot more experience than me regarding the good and bad points of the numerous kite brands out there, but I do unfortunately suffer from ‘Ducks disease’, along with the ‘package deal’ of ‘not-so-long arms’
, so I’ve contemplated this subject for many hours. IMO the short answer (no pun intended) is to have a kite with a good ‘trim’ range. This allows you to trim the kite so the bar remains close to you as the wind increases for that particular kite size. Example, the Cabs have a very short de-power strap, so as the wind picks up you pull the trim strap to depower, and the bar stays close to you and in a comfortable position, but the trim strap is so short that you run out of trim very quickly, and as the wind picks up the bar then gets further and further away from the kiter. For me, riding a Cab in the upper end of the wind range for that particular kite is not very comfortable.
On the other end of the spectrum, I had an Airush with a simple rope, pulley, and cleat, trim system, where the ‘trim’ range was huge, and I found it very easy to trim the kite so the bar was in a comfortable position.
The Core also has a large trim range, especially for an above the bar depower system, it probably has twice as much trim range as the Cabs, so I also find it works well for the short-limbed
. One negative side to the core bar is that although the trim strap is quite long and it provides heaps of trim range and less ‘reaching’ for the bar, the trade-off is that the amount of total available de-power (i.e. if you get in strife and let go of the bar) is much less, because the longer trim strap takes up some of the available depower travel from the bar.
Another commonly used solution for those with short arms is to go for a seat harness which keeps the whole bar system just a bit lower on the body, and the bar closer to the kiter.
