HOW TO: DRY YOUR WING !!!

Unless you end your session with a long ride in the sun and land on a pontoon, it’s rather rare to get out of the water with a completely dry wing. 😉 Note that there is no need to dry your wing if it is to be used regularly in salt water, as the salt protects the materials from mold.

 

 

If, however, for transport or storage reasons you want to dry them, you must absolutely avoid hanging the deflated wing by the handle on the leading edge. It’s however very practical but it is the best way to obtain a hernia on the central strut at the junction with the leading edge following the collapse of the bladder inside. The bladders are movable in the strut and the leading edge. So if you hang it up deflated to dry, the bladder can slip, or even crumple, in the strut sleeve.

If this happens, during the next pressurization there will be too much pressure in the bladder which will not be properly in place, and therefore a risk of hernia in the bladder leading to its bursting. Nothing dramatic because hernias are easy to repair, but not hanging a deflated wing avoids problems.

Why can this happen? Because the bladders must be replaceable. So fixing them would make the operation very complex and add weight to the wings.

Why doesn’t that happen on kites? Because the bladder is light in a kite, due to its small section. And it has a hard time sliding into the thinner strut sleeve. It’s very different on a wing with very large diameter bladders.

All wings are therefore affected and note that shaking them deflated can produce the same effect.

So ideally, you dry your inflated wing in the shade, and at worst flat or at least with just the inflated central strut (thanks to the “clamp” of the One-Pump system).

Gear of the sesh

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