RRD Emotion Mk2

RRD’s first version of the Emotion was one of the first ‘strutless’ kites on the market. The benefits were immediately clear – before you have taken it out of the bag. It packed down to virtually nothing (certainly compared to a 5 strut kite), pumped up in seconds, and then delivered a ‘pure’ feeling of power. So we were excited to see what was new for MK2.

For this test we had the middle sized Emotion, the 14.5M (there is also a 12 and a 17). In terms of what has changed, the profile has been updated to make it flatter towards the tips to improve upwind performance. There are also additional reinforcements on the LE panels. For us this is a good addition as there is more stress placed on this part of the kite due to the fact that there is no additional support through struts. The Emotion flies on the Global V7 which we have tested with a few kites now and are yet to find fault with: it’s a great bar.

In the air and our initial thoughts were that it was surprisingly quick around the window for such a large and powerful kite. It was also pretty responsive to steering input which was a nice surprise as many kites that sit in this category tend to be ‘all power’ and give you very little performance or ability to do much other than mow the lawn. The low end was excellent with smooth power delivery – it did get windier while we were testing and it is fair to say that it is then time to come and change down as it didn’t like being overpowered. We found that boosting was good and if you wanted to get stuck into some big jumps and old school moves on a lighter day then the Emotion MK2 would deliver. Another obvious purpose for the Emotion is foiling – as it is so light, it will stay in the air in a super-light breeze so you could easily get out on this kite in less than eight knots with a foil.

In a sentence: Very well-tuned lightwind kite which will get out in minimal wind but still see you pulling a few moves.