True, Johnson!
Prices are out of line.

A few years ago I corresponded with a well known sail and kite designer about getting a custom made sail for a small boat. He quoted me a price for a custom sail based on a design of his, made of my choice of dacron or laminate, for less than the average production model kite!
For $1100 as I recall, I could get a custom sail shipped to me.
For an additional $50/hour of his time, I could have him alter it to suit my needs exactly.
By the way this sail would be my choice of dacron or laminate (extra few $100 I think), with a life expectancy of 5 years minimum, maybe 10 if not abused.

If you look at sail lofts online you will see that you can buy a high tech, custom sail for a yacht, with area twice that of a kitesurf kite, for the same price.

In kiting, we pay a "bespoke" price for a mass-market product, in a sport too small to have a mass market in the first place!

Marketing, tariffs, and hand-finishing are the factors that keep kites expensive.
Technology can free us from the tariffs and much of the hand-work.
Only our minds lock us into the marketing image the current brands rely on.


I am not saying any of this just to be cheap, but for the good of all.
(In my opinion at least!).

Currently surfers can get an awesome custom surfboard for around $500,
or a CI or Lost model for $600, $700, or $800. All made of the same foam and glass!
In the future, hopefully as kiters, we will have a similar option - pay heavily for image, or pay less for what you really want.

In 2023, the MOST SEXY KITE PICTURE thread is going to be at aproximately 1783 pages,

Ooooohhhhh Yeeeaaaahhh !!!

making it cheaper is easy. Just get 100 times as many kiters...and a fewer companies to make kites.

BWD. You are comparing apples and oranges. A kite is much more complex than most sails. The boards you are looking at for 500 is not the same beefed up construction as most kiteboards. If they were we'd be all riding those ultra light construction.

teijin t9600 is about $25 per meter, that's $300 for a 12m kite just for the fabric that doesn't count ripstop for the leading edge, polyester thread, labor, bridles of dyneema sk75 30 cents a foot, sheathing, polyrethane bladders, valves stainless steel rings, ronstan pulleys.

That assumes zero waste too. which pretty much never happens. especially when you're trying to cut complex canopy shapes out of squares of material.

Microhooks and 7m kites that turn like 20's all the way!

This isn't meant to be taken in a negative way :
--eree & pmaggie-- Ya both seam conditioned towards the pessimistic side

--eree -- laied out a Very well thought-out argument for his opinion,on another
Thread i had started , Last year. it went like This :


I'm saying that the technology already exists for better kites.
Expensive -- YES , most definitely, but there are Lots of money people
who are willing to purchase a $22,000 hang glider, ( not me) ; but i fly
a $10,000 glider that i got used for $1,500 .

Let's Forget about the Tech.. available from HG's and look at PG's
for a moment.

The Speed 21, good for the Max in Low-wind. I could expect it to pull
my 200Lb with a big board in a realistic 7-9mph or so with a top speed
somewhere around possibly the high teens ?

Now look at the numbers for the PG that i currently just purchased.
Click on specification --- near top center :
http://www.macpara.com/en/paraglider-magus-xc.html

A 24M PG, with My weight will have a
Top speed with accelerator on 52-55 [km/h] or (34 mph)

Now I'm sorry Guys -- a 24M kite that can do 34MPH !!!
That would be Faster if Ya had the rail of your board
dug in the water ...

On HG's. My 158sq/ft glider has a VNE of 58 MPH in turbulence ; I
have had it traveling Well over 80MPH in smooth air .

Those numbers are not even CLOSE to the pathetic #'s
for a water Kite ; and it ALL due to the Crappy airfoils the designers
have shoved down our throats for a decade now.

Once again --- place "most" Every available kite on the market today
in a field--side-by-side, and stand back 200 yards :
----------------They ALL Look the SAME ------------------------------

Bille

Alright lads it's like this:
kites have more panels but that's negated when Asian seamstresses get $20-50 a day while us/euro sailmakers get 20-50 per HOUR. What's more half the panels in a kite are DUPLICATES of the other unlike normal sails. Not as complicated as at first glance!Keep in mind what i wrote re: strut count as an example and overall design progress to do more with less and you will get it. Im aware the teijin is x dollars per whatever but a lot less per meter when you buy a kilometer of it to run a factory for multiple kite brands! FYI the comparison I made was for cloths that cost in the same range, apples to apples. Heck some laminates are closer to $40....

As to boards, there was no apples to oranges there either. I said I hope in future the situation with KITES will be more like the current situation with SURFBOARDS, where you can get good custom products locally made for the same price as big-name production models, if not less. Clever people can make this happen, with current and near-future technologies.
So, you see I was comparing the dynamics of 2 different industries not the construction of kiteboards and surfboards! The similarities between kite and surfboards and the fact that their shapes and builds are converging and will continue to do so, we can leave for another thread.
Do you like apples?

you think a company can sell 12 meter kites for less than two sets of king size 1500 thread count sheets and stay in business

Sometimes that's true. However, look at the surfing industry, or the snowboarding or skiing industries. Easily a 100 times as many surfers, skiers or snowboarders as there are kiters. Yet the cost of boards, boots, bindings, suites still goes up every year.

Rising cost of oil and as a result the rising cost of materials and shipping for those materials seems to continue to drive prices up regardless of market size. Is oil going to be cheaper in 2023 then it is now? probably not. therefore we can expect steadily increasing prices as material cost, labor cost, transportation cost rise and the value of the dollar falls. You can find this in any market really. Look at cars. Are they cheaper then they were 50 years ago? heck no! prices have skyrocketed and even though cars are now packed with more technology then ever, they do no last like the old ones. Everything has become biodegradable and recyclable yet nothing has become longer lasting or futureproof. Sorry if my view sounds a little bleak but I think our consumer addiction to buy new every 6mo. has seriously screwed us in the long run.