New Surfboard?

[paolo]

I have a 2011 WAM 5' 10". I'm a bit of a North groupie, but I love the board. Ride it strapless and have started doing small aerials. Landed hard on it a couple of times (with my body not my feet..:/) and no problems. I think it's a bit heavy but I like that for ollies.... board feels like it'll stay with you.

Paolo

[stompdit]

I put my foot through and demolished a 2011 slingshot surf board doing strapless airs. Gonna try a firewire hellfire.

[Rob]

Get the FW taj you won't be disappointed .

[sloughslut]

Get a Stretch Yes.

[vdeub]

Quick question:

are Kitesurf boards (at the same size) way thinner than your typical surfboard ?
i kite with a F-One 5'8'' Bamboo strapped and surf with a custom 6'4 Vernor Quad, relatively wide and fat, without too much rocker (i am not an expert surfer). now, when kiting strapless the F-One seems very small to me and the 6'4 really bulky. my guess a 6'2 performance surfboard would do the trick ?
(I am 5'8 for 160lbs)

[etxxz]

other way around. i surf with a 6.0 x 20.5 x 2.5 fish and its considered chubby for its size/shape. Kite surfboard should be thicker/stronger(more glass)/(heavier) in general to take impacts. I sold a 6.1 x 19.5 x 2.25 last week because every time i rode on it, i'd dent it. Better to cash out while i could.

i'm gonna have to spend the for a strong EPS board that will last. Was even considering a short fat fish and glassing the top to myself to make the deck stronger. That's usually the weak point of a surfboard for kiting. The deck vs your feet/heel.

think about this. A shortboard is meant to be ridden for a few years, an average of like 10seconds per ride if you're a good surfer not taking into account sun/degradation/water damage. Just one kite session will probably put the use time, plus jumping on it idk seems like kitesurfboard have to be purpose built. fyi, i've never bought a kite specific board which probably explains why i've damaged my surfboards.

[vdeub]

to be more precise .. in term of volume ? i would have guess that thanks to the pull of the kite you dont need as much volume than on a surfboard, then you would go smaller on a surfboard to kite vs to surf.

[WindMuch]

Think about what you'll be doing with the board...

For me, it's about carve - not flotation. I prefer a thinner board, particularly in the tail. I'm talking thickness, not width. With less volume you can put the rail in the water and edge super hard - off the bottom, setting up for an off the lip or floater.

I had the 5'11" Slingshot Tyrant earlier this season but sold it as it had more volume than I prefer kiting most average size Northern California waves. It worked well in overhead to 1.5x overhead waves this spring when a bit more volume helped get the board down the face and down the line.

My favorite all-around kite specific surfboard is/was the 5'8" or 5'10" F-One "Signature", thruster bamboo model. Unfortunately they don't make it anymore. The 2010 squash tail model (not the 2011 rounded pin).

I ride strapped and jumped the crap out of my first one (the 5'8") for two full seasons before I buckled it.

If you're all about strapless and are going to air it out, you'll wanna consider the deck material/construction.

So my vote is thinner is better once you're riding real waves. I can't get a thick/volumey board to carve the turns the same...

Kirk out

[Aloha]

Etx try something cut out of tuflite - I had a fishy dualie I rode a full season of kiting and a full winter of surfing and it barely had any dents

Cheap on CL and the construction definitely stands up to kiting

[sc-surfer]

some great boards on craigslist Santa Cruz right now. Couple of surftec models, couple of firewires, and several Stretch epoxy boards. If I hadn't just bought 4 kites I'd be picking up the firewire Taj model on there right now.