I took the 10m Alpha away on my last trip to see if the hype about it being a great allrounder matched the reality.
It is super light pumped up, and you really feel it when its really light (6-7 knots) as it drifts, but never falls, even in really light times. On the foil it powers up really smoothly, and has massive depower, so super easy to concentrate on the foil itself. The bar has a little more pressure than the Reo’s i’m used to, but that actually makes foiling transitions and dealing with wind variation even easier. It goes upwind ridiculously easily, but the drift capabilities make tricky downwind foiling super simple. It really gives you confidence to downloop knowing how much depower and control you have.
I managed to relaunch it in less than 10 knots, but any more than that and it pops up super easily with a back line reverse launch.
So super good for foiling which is maybe no surprise, but what really surprised me was how good it is to use on a surfboard. It definitely has more grunt than my 9m Reo, but in onshore conditions i was really surprised how well it turns and drifts when you’re riding. I don’t own a twintip anymore but there’s definitely a load of pop for strapless freestyle, so i’m guessing unless you want to do megaloops and full on freestyle this’ll do you nicely on a twintip as well.
There are other good single strut kites on the market, but i haven’t used one with anywhere near as much all-round performance as this before.
Suspect my 10m Alpha is going to be my go-to kite for the summer for sure!!