Adjustable Bridle Systems for the NPW 
Faster and easier Bridles!!
Make 4 bridle lines at once with no knots as such
This section is for BOTH the Standard Classic and Cascade, 2 and 4 line bridling
If you're interested in the Cascade bridle, click here after reading this.
Many of us have spent hours making bridles and tying shroud lines to NPW kites. One has to cut lines to length individually, tie on loops, measure, mark and tie onto the correct point on the kite… 36 times for the NPW5 and 48 for the NPW9’s.... HOURS!! Unfortunately, slipknots hang up a lot in the bridle shrouds, and sometimes won't untangle in flight. I got miffed!! There HAD to be a better, simpler way!!
I felt I needed strong seams for the type knots I wanted to use, and straight sewn seams didn’t have the strength I needed. This meant a new approach to the attachment of the shrouds to the sail. I thought a continuous heavy line INSIDE the sail would give the strength I wanted and be far simpler than the individually sewn type attachments. It did the trick. The attached internal and perimeter cord is an anchor for the connecting loops used. It also helps strengthen the sail seams, and "wing" perimeters. I [probably wrongly] call them “Leech” lines.
My idea worked, but it involves a considerable difference in the approach of sewing the NPW kites. If you tend to follow the conventional type assembly of kites, you may not agree with my type of construction. It’s considerably faster, easier and gets you in the air sometimes DAYS ahead of what it might have taken otherwise. None the less, choose your poison and let’s make a kite!
To start, peruse all the drawings and pix below FIRST, and then see the text. Pictures are worth a thousand words…. So, without further ado, and with these pix, have at it.
Below is the board I use. As you can see it’s quite simple and straight forward. The most complex part about it is the different lengths of loops I can make…. The sail loop slots and holes are at the left end of the board. My board is a little over 6 feet long… approx 1” x 1” sq. stock is used. Size isn’t critical and I used what I had on hand.
This is the slider block. No need to be this elaborate, but it works! A ¼ x 20 nut or blind nut is set permanently inside one side of one of the side layers of thick ply making the slider-block. The wing-nut is locked to the shaft of the threaded end of the bolt, [ I used a pal-nut, or Epoxy would work also] the head is removed, and ground to a rounded point to match a small hole or divot in a small aluminum plate inside to keep the slider block from moving. The bolt shaft turns freely within the slider. The whole assembly is sandwiched together with a couple thin pieces of plywood and 2 thicker pieces of ply match the stock. Make sure the block slides easily on the 1” stock before committing glue to the parts!!! A quarter turn or so of the wing nut locks the sliding block into place and you’re ready to cut bridles... rapidly!
The bent coat hanger wires separate the lines for marking the tie, or harness points of the Standard Bridle. The width of separation is accommodated out from the block to allow marking the proper bridle points between the upright wire hooks. What you set the edge of the block at is the ultimate length of the bridle at the harness tie point. When making the Classic style bridles or the Cascade primaries, set the bend of the wire hook OVER the proper bridle leg length using only ONE hook for the turnaround or center of the secondaries. One leg of nearly ALL the secondary lines has a short side which will be marked at a point to the left of the hook. It will be the lower line marked. See Tom White’s plans for the usage of the bridle board as it’s clear and concise. You might even prefer his board as it’s a good one, too. His addy is further down the page.
I used a table saw to make a slot for the tape measure and glued it with
The slots below at the cutting end of the board are the scissor guides to ultimately cut the lines after marking. I’ve put 4 slots here to allow making different length loops to attach to the sail for experimentation and adjustments… BIG adjustments if necessary. Huge loops can be handy on experimental kites.
When stringing out the shrouds you can either use a clove hitch on the left nail, or you can stick the end of the line into the nail hole and wedge the nail back into the hole to hold the line in place. That’s a copy of Tom White’s printout for a 135Cm NPW9b Vulture Cascade Bridle above. The printed instructions on his site are absolutely great, so I won’t go into them here.
The “Zero” point is to the left, and the color coded marks are for marking the IN and OUT points of the “Looped Tie System.” Again, see Tom White’s info for an in depth course in how to do this. You’ll need a “Fid,” or very small wire [think “G” guitar string, here] to make one if you’re going to use this method of connection. If you’re going to use standard knots move the nail closer to the “0” point affording sufficient line to tie your knots, and this board still works just fine.
When making the lineset pairs, [you’re making both sides of the bridle at once here] DON'T LOOSE TRACK OF WHICH IS WHICH. You're a lot better off if you make one pair or set at a time. Make a rack with brads (number them, A-1, A2, B-1, B-2, etc.) to hold each of the lineset pairs as you make them. There is a diagram later in this article showing the shroud hookup points on the sail. The diagram below [the original for standard bridling] might help understanding of the bridle board setup. It was just a board with a brad nailed in the left side and a push pin for the right side. The next shroud pair was measured and the push-pin moved for each lineset pair. Simple, but effective, and it ultimately led to the board above.
Ok... it's time to make up the bridles. At this point I’m going to point you, again, to the internet. There are several really good bridle/sail programs out there, with both Classic and Cascade type bridles. The following are links to two of them that I was personally involved in and really appreciate the work done by BOTH men. Actually there were some dozen plus people involved in one way or another but these are the two authors who made the NPW9b a public reality. Peruse them and choose which is best for you. They are EXCELLENT PROGRAMS for NPW’s… < Tom White> and < JP Gleyzes >
Again- when making the shrouds as above, be sure to leave PLENTY of tag line for adjustments at the sail. I have 9” shown in the above drawing. In the 5th picture down I can accommodate 4” to 10” loops in 2” increments. Until you are confident with the programs and your building ability, leave extra line… and I mean a good 6” extra. After the bridles are tied to the sail leave the tags hanging for the time being. You may well have to make some adjustments, or we might come out with an even more superior bridle to what we have now.
There’s tons of info out there on the web about bridling. Check this website: [ http://muk.home.att.net/inShop/inShop.html ] from Mervin Updyke. He gives several of the better links to other websites about bridling and the NPW family of kites. My web pages, Tom White’s and JP’s are the ones that I mostly refer to. Mervin’s site makes it easy to cut and paste the link you want to use, and that’s why I have his page listed above. I won’t forget here to again mention Francis Rogallo, Buck Childers, Peter deJong, Jacques Bayman, Tom White, Larry Green, and Fredrik Lejonklou for all their hard work and efforts in the NPW kiting circles, either…. thanks again, guys!
Starting with the first lineset hanging on your board, tie the A1 end to the designated point on the sail first, as shown, left. The following pix show how the puncturing, connection and feeding of the lines back into their tunnels back out again, are done… There is an EXCELLENT drawing on Tom White’s site showing this, but a pic is worth a thousand words… I’ve also left the pix on this site in reference for those illustrations. It doesn’t leave much to the imagination…..
Thread the 200# line onto a large eyed (carpet) needle and run it through and behind the seam, as shown. Make sure the shroud either penetrates or encircles the heavier line sewn into the sail for strength. Try not to penetrate the back of the sail. (Much easier said than done!!)
Next insert the wire loop ("Fid") into the mark furthest from the “tag” end of the shroud, with the fid point towards the tag end of the line. Run the wire loop down through the tunnel of the shroud and out at the next mark. Fray the end of the tag for about 3/8" *. Thread the "tag" end of the line through the eye the fid, and bend half the frayed end of the line over the tip of the fid. Guide the tag end into the tunnel and back out the second hole.
* [Fraying the tag ends makes the material compress and pass through the tube much more easily. The pic shows the wire loop and needle all in one picture. It's a bit easier to pull the tag through the sail first, and then get the fid in place to pull the line through.]
Just as you start pulling the frayed tag into the tunnel, it should look something like on the left. Note the frayed end! Twist the fid, and roll the point of entry between your fingers to help the doubled back, frayed tag penetrate the outside wall of the line. Pull slowly and deliberately so you don’t loose the tag end inside the walls of the tube or you’ll have to start all over again. It’s really not as hard as it sounds!
In the next 2 pix, tighten the loop directly against the sail by pulling the tag and line at the same time. Be sure the mark for proper length is in position behind, or in the leech line. Now pinch the sail and bend in the line, use your thumbnail to pull the tunnel tight over the inside line. Do this several times. (I made these pix knowing the shroud line tags were not going to stick out of the tunnel. The bridles were already properly tuned, thus no tags showing.
You should now have several inches of tag line sticking out of the shroud line for adjustment [even tho’ I don’t show it here.] there should also have a fairly large loop at the sail for adjustments. Please note again, the pix above don't show the long tag.
This is the
Don’t use the super glue unless you are very satisfied with the final tuning of your kite, and realize that it’s a PERMANENT knot thereafter. I can’t emphasize this enough!!
Finishing up the bridle- Use the chart to the left for a sequence of shroud lines for a Cascade NPW5. Any combination can be used; the more commonly used 4 line setup is seen to the left. The A-9 thru 12 can be used for brakes, also. Be sure to tie off the RED marked ends of the shrouds to the sail of the NPW first. Be very aware of which line goes where, especially with the brake lines. I tie off all the secondaries to the sail first [shown below], and add the primaries later because they are ALL the same length.
Remember again: the RED ends are almost ALWAYS the shortest of the shroud line ends. The 4 brake lines, however, can differ; but the RED ends are STILL the shorter of the two...
The shroud to sail looping system might seem to be a bit more tedious to some, but I have found once learned, the loops are much quicker, a lot cleaner and easier, especially using 50+ pound test Dacron line. This system leaves NO KNOTS to catch or hang up with the exception of tying on the flying lines to the shroud harness knots.
The pic immediately above left shows the first step in tying the secondaries off to the sail. This works for both the NPW5 and NPW9 series kites as a first step when tying on the Cascade type bridle.
The next step is gathering all of the primaries in the middle (or tie points of the Classic Bridle System) and tying on the harness cord onto the bundle. Do this BEFORE tying the primaries to the secondaries! The outcome will be a lot more accurate! The bridling sequence is the NPW9b… no true knots at the “Q” points.
See below how to gather the primary lines.
Before you tie on the primary lines, Gather up all the middle dots on the primary lines (or Classic lines) from one side, or half of the kite. Put the brake primary lines aside as they will be done later. Match them as shown left. If you have a pair of large hemostats, they will hold everything in place. Tie the whole thing off with a double looped knot to one side (or both sides) using parachute cord. Most any length cord will work as long as it's they’re all the same length, and tied properly. After you make these primary "sets" they can be pulled tight and THEN be laid out and properly marked [they’re all the same length!] Now tie them off to the secondaries on the kite. Lots easier to tie the bundle first and mark all the shrouds afterwards.
Look closely at the knot to the left. THIS KNOT WILL SLIP!! Note the double wrapped parachute cord on the lower part of the knot, and the single wrap on the top… It's what I call a sloppy 1-1/2 Lark's head or even figure “8”. If the loops in the parachute cord were to be forcefully straightened out, this knot could then be corrected, but do it right the first time.) The knots below in the next pic WON'T slip.....
Note the relationship of the parachute cord and the shroud lines wrapping around them. The intertwining strength of this "knot" is in the shrouds' circling around the parachute cord, not parachute cord wrapping around the shrouds - this keeps the shrouds in their proper place once the "knot" is tied and tightened. Tom’s site shows how to put a half twist in the cord as you tie this knot. Once again, mark the primaries or classic lines after you tie this knot.
You will be pleased how fast and easy this process is once you get the hang of it. Doing the first set of shrouds might go a little slowly, but familiarity will soon make it much faster. It took me about 20 minutes to cut and mark the whole bridle system for a 2.5 meter NPW. The tying and looping of lines takes a bit longer, but not a lot… an hour and a half or, perhaps, two. The Dacron tunnel can be fidgety. Only after you make all the secondary "sets" and tie them off to the kite in their proper places, should you make, mark and tie off the primaries to the kite. Keep things in order and you won’t get screwed up! Even so, I still do once in a while… ~8OP
POINTS TO PONDER:
Always tie bridles up for 4 line flying! They can still be used for 2 line flying by tying the Larks Head knot OVER BOTH KNOTS. And it still offers the versatility of "going either way", if you will, in the future... I also caution you to never fly an NPW of any persuasion on 2 lines if it’s over 2.0M^2. You’re just begging for trouble if you do! Even “little NPW’s” in higher winds pull like a truck! They can drag your butt or your belly down the field before you can let go. Remember!!! YOU are responsible for any personal damage to yourself, or anything else, for that matter, so just fly responsibly.
Good Luck... I hope this saves you lots of building time and speeds up your getting on the field. If you want better pix/files of the drawings, feel free to contact me. I can usually help... just ask me! I'll really try to give a hand online or whatever. Get in touch!! Send me some pix when you’re done for one of the NPW galleries.
Good Luck and Have fun!!! ~8O)
Bill Painter- Phoenix, Az. NPWBill@cox.net May the wind always BE at your back!!