I just saw these boards on the PKRA Germany...and I wonder, where do we go to?

Wasn't the beauty of kitesurfing the smaller gear? Now those race guys are back at windsurfing board bags!

And listening to some chats, many riders want to have a box of dimensions...part of the industry as well, other parts not.

Olympia getting closer, and shouldn't the dimension be limited to develop within with enough time?

Let's discuss!

I think the windsurfers have a max. width of 100cm - would probably make sense to have a similar thing in kiting - not sure what it should be though...60cm????

I would say more than 60cm seeing as the low wind linit is only 4knts. Maybe 65cm is enough? otherwise it really restricts bigger guys and girls and will give the racing to the lighter guys when its low wind. Fins are limited now but I think the biggest thing that needs to happen soon for the ISAF Worlds and Continentals is for them to be on Production only equipment which has to be registered by a certain date as for the windsurfers and dinghys.
PKRA racing can and should stay as open to aid development.
Lets hope something happens soon and more people can be competitive without spending thousands, otherwise we have no chance for the Olympics in 2016.
happy riding
lee

Unlimited dev classes are sexy. To heck with restrictions. The fin thing was realy just put in to limit foil boards anyway.

I think it would be premature to set limits on board dimensions, since even the hugest race kiteboards are still quite compact compared to windsurfs. And there might be good, untapped performance potential in slightly larger boards that could help kiting be competitive against other kinds of high-performance sail craft.

Setting a reasonable minimum wind limit (like 8 knots) and a limit on the amount of gear you can take to a competition (like only one or two boards) ought to be sufficient to keep boards at moderate sizes.

I haven't seen any slalom boards yet, but those are likely to be slimmed down raceboards that can be gybed and are built for maximum speed and control on a beam reach.
That may take the pressure off the race boards for size, as manufacturers would (I think) sell more of the slalom boards, and race boards would be used largely for racing, so if extra width works, that's the way to go for racing.

Similar comparison with the windsurf formula and slalom boards. These 2 are 68 and 100 cm wide.

those steps cut out of the tail corners of the board look interesting.... i guess they allow you to stand on the rear corner of the board, while not touching the water there as much...maybe to make turning easier? i dunno.

windsurfer geek input needed.

EDIT: this windsurf thread explains the concept here:
http://www.star-board.com/forum/showthread.php?t=900

The most efficient planing surface is short and wide. Windsurf speed boards tend to be narrow, but that is to give directional stability.

I dont know but guess that the tail cut-outs give a short wide planing area, but with a tail extenson that helps the board track and keep air away from the fin.

raceboards are getting huge,here the last board from newind,it's 175x68 4 fins.
definitely fast,tried it with 36/34 fins and 30/28 bit more difficult than the production one, but faster on upwind performance in light wind (ozone zephir on 7/8 kts)
plus more comfortable.
damn! last year 50's wide board were the top performance machine..after few months they are smoked by this fat boards also in moderate winds.
where will we go??
http://www.newind.net/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=291

Hi, Toby,

can you tell us what fin setup was on these proto NKB race boards, 4 or 3 fin setup? As I can understand from the picture, the one (wider) is for light wind and the other one for stronger winds. Is that right?