livingston wrote:I will be going to a course racing so i am not in the mood of buying a board.
What about that north race ltd is it any good? Anyone tried it?
I my self have a cabrinha custom 133 X 39 and a north rocketfish 6''...i'll try them out if i get the chance before the race...
No doubt at all - the Rocketfish will be WAY better for racing
But you should practice jibing and tacking - if you are not experienced at this now.
The North Race board will blow the socks out of ANY of your boards and wins hands down
I have been out on this board the last two days, and even in the lightest wind where I can not even go on my 6' waveboard (only on a huge big fish) - I was blasting upwind full speed at an amazing angle !
And the fun part is - I was expecting it to be hard to jibe and go downwind, because of the deep fins - but it was really easy, and you could just blast ahead on all courses in full control - AWESOME
It feeels sooooo light on your feet (it IS light too though...), and I've never experienced anything like it before - ANY other board I've ridden dont have the same feel of "nothing" on your feet - but just blasting effortlessly along and keeping the track/edge/upwind
I've ridden raceboards a couple of times before, and my friends are part of the team testing and developing these, so I know what they can do - but this was the first time in marginal conditions and quite choppy too, and I was amazed.
The most fun part though, was the ability to jump pretty high in this low wind, where you wouldnt see any whitecaps anywhere (out with an 11m2 grunty kite).
Because of the sheer speed a bit upwind, your apparent wind gives you a huge boost for jumping - COOL !
Tested against other boards to see the difference (big TT, normal waveboard, big fish), and there were absolutely no comparison.
My friend were out with a big fast straightedged TT, and we switched boards - and suddenly one could see the extreme difference in angle you could go, and at the same blasting speed for both boards (you have to ride with speed in low wind with the TT to get any apparent wind), just to eliminate the rider and kite fully.
It is a small board though - so in light wind you should always keep it planing, as it dont have much volume and length compared to a waveboard.
Top racers would use a bigger raceboard with bigger fins for super light wind of course.
But for me it worked great in these marginal conditions.
So as I've said many times - these boards are by far the best lightwind boards of all boards, no doubt.
And as you can jump higher than on anything else, they are not THAT boring either (as I would've expected...)
Of course - it is not a surfboard, so not the same dynamic options for waves nope.
Still, I can not understand there are so few using these boards ?
Because I KNOW for sure, that many of the kitesurfers out there, are NOT into waves, but like to blast along and maybe take on trips.
I honestly think it is lack of knowledge, and because "when noone uses these, they cant be good..."
Peter
