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It makes the light days days not only ridable, but fun to ride.

On the 15 Charger and the medium naish raceboard, I was going pretty fast, and often quite depowered while tacking. Wind was 8-10 mph with deep lulls and a few small spikes. It is pretty amazing, but I am out there riding pretty fast, people are trying bigger kites and failing at it because they cannot keep the speed on the board through the lulls. The decent sized kite and raceboard is a pretty unbeatable combination for light winds. I guess my foil can go too, but I enjoy the raceboards more because of the speed I can hold....

Now I do think it is more fun when you have someone to ride with, which I think most people will agree with, and in this respect I think it important that we, people with raceboard, promote it well. I think it is a little intimidating for people because they try to ride the boards on a rail, which is not the way to do it.

So how do you tell people to ride their boards so that they become successful fast?

Yeah, light wind + race board. Cannot agree more. I, too, like the speed of race boards. On light wind days, the chop is minimal, allowing for a smoother, comfortable ride at good speed. On those days, I keep switching between the race board for the speed and the hydrofoil for the upwind and smooth ride.

Yes, there is a learning curve to race boards. The balance of the weight on the board is completely different than any twintip or in fact any board that must be edged. Took me about 2-3 hours to get to the "Wow!!" phase.

Key tips at the beginning:

1. front foot in footstrap
2. back foot on deck in front of back footstrap
3. at power stroke, stand up vertically on the board, go downwind (broad reach)
4. keep the speed
5. lean back slowly, applying more and more pressure forward on the back foot (no heel pressure) to keep the board flat to help change the point of sail to beam reach to close reach to close hauled.

Easier said than done.

Norm

I feel the same as you mate. I'm having an awesome time in light days on my 14m kite and speed board, cruising a couple of km upwind from where I start. When I get back everyone else looks depressed after trying 16m kites with twintips and not even staying upwind. Worst part is that we stay in a chronically wind deprived part of the world, so getting the most out of light wind conditions is important if we want to kite at all sometimes.

Added to that the water is so nice and flat in light wind, the race board becomes even more fun (and easier), yet no one wants to even try my board when I offer them. As I get better at it, it just becomes more fun and I rave all about it. Yet, no one even seems to hear me. I'm starting to think I must use reverse psychology: tell everyone to avoid it, its too difficult for them, whats the fun about not jumping, and then I just go cruise around when everyone else is sitting watching. Maybe then they will try it?

Anyway's, if you find something that works, let me know. It would be nice to have a couple of other race kiters and start doing some fun races.

Awesome guys!!! I think getting the back foot out in the beginning is key for sure. Several guys I've seen try, even after I try to tell them to ride the opposite rail, to hold the board flat, they try to ride it like a twin tip.

Some people have this weird idea that it is dangerous with the big fins..oh well.

I've never ridden a race board but i hear that it gives you that "riding on the fins" feeling i used to get windsurfing.

TooMuchEpoxy wrote:I've never ridden a race board but i hear that it gives you that "riding on the fins" feeling i used to get windsurfing.

Well, I've windsurfed twice in my life so don't take it from me, but the raceboard have gotten the final holdouts of the windsurfers to have another look at kiting.

That said, I just tried windsurfing for the second time and would love to try more of that too

Raceboards (Aguera CR53, CR59 and my new LE CR69) have doubled my days on the water here in the Arizona desert. We have a huge lovely lake but terrible shifty, holey and offshore wind at the one kite launch.

Like you said, lots of resistance from the twin-tip kite crew. Though the windsurfers are clearly fascinated by the kite/race being faster when they're planing and still going strong when they're slogging . And they'd never seen kites drive upwind like that before either. The kite/race really does give you that awesome flying on the fin feeling I used to have way back in my windsurfing days on my old Richard Greene GEM world cup course slalom boards with big blades. Big smiles, first time I've had that sensation since switching to kites 8 years ago.

I think the latest IKA "box rule" raceboards can get more people to try them. 27.5" wide, 6'3" long and as much as 85liters of volume which effectively floats 170lbs of the rider. I just sold one of my Agueras to a fellow who was slogging on a 17m / door when a kiteracer on a 13m blew past him driving upwind hard. The huge wind range of these wide boards / long fins have been great too for keeping my quiver smaller. My biggest kite for the past year has been a 13m XBow despite my 210lbs.

Originally raceboards were merely a way for me to get on the water sooner. But I've grown to love the speed and "go anywhere" freedom to roam our 2.5 x 4 mile (30 km²) lake. Now the raceboards are all I ride here, reserving my little bamboo surfboard for the gorge and coast.

My latest ride for the desert, not me in the picture

Lucky,
...I've been thinking about board sizes. Don't you think that a person that is used to a TT will feel the large raceboards are too big? I mean my personal feeling is that it will be way easier to learn on, but harder to perfect perhaps? Much easier to ride flat and correct, but harder to tack? I really do not know though.

I'm just thinking the boards might be too big for peoples cars? I think it is awesome development and I can't wait to see what comes next.

All race boards are too big for a twintipper But not that difficult to sort out if you start with coaching for the first hour or so. Yes, smaller boards like Aguera 53cm or race "inspired" twin-fin directionals like Cab Transport are easier but need more wind and don't drive upwind as hard. It took me several sessions to get dialed in w/o coaching but my buddy Dave was able to start rocking on it in 45 minutes with some input from the sidelines.

Lot of folks want them for very light winds, but that's NOT the easiest conditions to learn in since they won't have the skills yet to load & go. Something like 14 to 16mph is probably perfect since it let's them easily get up some speed and start loading the fins w/o getting out of control.

While large from a kiter's perspective, kite race boards are small relative to other board sports. 2/3 the size of a windsurfer, 1/2 the size of a SUP. And the weights of 11 to 16lbs are easy to carry around. And IKA "box rules" 190cm x 70cm prevent them from getting any larger (though the fins can get up to 50cm).

The challenge will be to make something with "almost" equal performance that has fins around 25cm.
40-50cm is a huge pain in shallow areas and also way more expensive.
Wonder if that will ever happen... ...might have to experiment....