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Yeah I also find my directional to be better in the flukey stuff... nice and fast... rember also that if you're goin fast the apparant wind is less affected by the true wind speed......

BLOWN AWAY

I'll agree with that, the more apparent wind you have, the wind feels smoother, as the strength % of the gusts are small compared to your apprarent wind... and on a directional, a gust doesn't affect your direction as much compared to a TT.

Borrow the nice person dont buy it. die hard waker that went on 60 M lines today now thats a rush.

The first board I used was an old 8ft 3in windsurfing waveboard....

Really easy to get going on... even with the footstrap placement....

BLOWN AWAY

Ok..ok Key word here is big right? I should have added size to my post Yeah sure I' not going to put the guy on a 140 and expect him get up...you get big TT's aswell 170 180's. You find allot scrupulous Dealers and Kite schools trying to sell newbies on to Direc's and milk and extra $300 outa the guy when you know they going to sell the thing 2 weeks down the line and buy TT's. Sure a Directional is nice to get going on but like I said before you do get big TT's for people to start out on to. Look a school level sure let the guy get feel of the Direc' before putting him on a TT. When I started out I had no Windsurfing experenice I crossed over from Wakeboarding so Direc's and the whole jibing thing was forgein to me..and frankly it looked like a waste of time.

Like Johnny said you should be able to give your Student the choice give him a questionaire or something to fill out before the course to guage his/her level of competence. I can tell you a guy crossing over from a sport like Wakeboarding will trash the whole Direc' idea whereas your Windsurfer might go for it...your newbie however with no type of board experience would be stupid if he/she did'nt start off on a Direc'. So my point and I sorry I did'nt make it clearer in prevoius post is Instructors/Dealers need to find out what the Student wants or should say what his/her level is and give that student the neccessary choice.

I agree with Wipi in this regard. If its a lesson, fine, put him on a directional, but I don't like the idea of selling a guy a directional and then having the guy trade it in, in 6 months time. You lose value on secondhand boards. Yes, directional's have fins to help the guys get going, but I don't see guys who spend longer than a day on a twin tip without getting the hang of edging. They may battle to go upwind, but they learn to edge quickly enough.

So, if its lessons, start him on a directional and let him get going. All the guys in SA now, buy twin tips or wakes as their first boards, due to costs. (SA is one of the cheapest spots for kites and boards, but compare it to the average salary and its damn expensive for people here).

Bare in mind here, that guys in SA will start out with an airblast as a first kite and sacrifice a longer learning curve for having to trade in a kite after a couple of months and losing money.

MISSIONMAN - that said why r u not riding a directional ???? Judging by your pictures and having seen you kite you have not managed to find the rail yet ...

I learned on a low volume TT, Loose AX160 and found it much easier even for my first hours. My first few minutes were on a large directional and it was horrible.
I was unable to maintain a contant pull on the kite because the board would go fast, slow down and go fast again.

On the TT it was much easier, it stayed underwater until I had good pull on the kite and didn't started to plane until there was enough pull to stay planing.

I doubt this is an argument between directional or TT though, more between high and low volume boards, while directional boards tend to have more volume.

lol MM you have a following.....

Whats a rail?

Always a person who is jealous of my flatboard downwind sliding to tea-bag fall technique.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: MissionMan on 2002-10-02 15:36 ]</font>