C Johnson wrote:board shorts will have come back in style... again...
everything else will pretty much be the same.
Ha haa - good one
Are board shorts OUT of style now, where you are Johnson ?
Here they have been super hot for about 4 years, and now the last 1½ year it is more hot to ride without shorts for many, and in waves a total NO-NO with shorts (over the wetsuit that is...)
I believe everything else will be pretty much the same too, just like you and coleman
Look at kitesurfing seen from the "outside":
In 2000 we started kitesurfing in huge numbers around the world, and kiteschools all over - before 2000 it was hardly present eventhough it existed.
At that time the kites fast became 4 line C shaped with HUGE low end, and we rode on 6 foot directionals, very similar to surfboards.
Then evolution gave us front line flying depower kites, and twintip boards, and then the bridles kites came and superflat to start with - but now most rides a mix which is bridled kites looking quite C shape when seen from outside, and many uses kitewaveboards, so the circle is closed (at least seen with rough glasses)
In windsurfing, which has 35 years of full evolution (meaning, mass production in huge numbers for 35 years), the story is similar, just drawn out over 2-3 times as long time:
Apart from the first few years where the sport settled (just like kitesurfing the first 2 years with 2 liners), the boards were funboards with pintails and quite thick.
Awesome control in waves and jibes and with speed !
Then longer narrow boards came for racing, and supershort small boards for waves - getting really radical in each own direction.
Later the raceboards became superwide and supershort, just like today - and wave/freestyle boards also became wide and short and flat now, so they came closer to each other.
And now, the waveboards has become a bit longer and pintail and really thick - looking ALMOST like the funboards of the 80's
The circle has closed !
Similar ins and outs can be told about windsurf sail design
( yes, I know that a surfboard from today havent got much in common with the directionals we started on in kitesurfing, and also aware that the windsurf waveboards of today are very different from the funboards back then - but even from someone knowing just a tad about the sports - they wont be able to spot the difference at all ! )
So just like boardshorts were hot, and now its not (and tomorrow it might come back) - everything goes in circles, apart from the early years where HUGE differences came.
Even the bow kite (bridled kite) that we all (most) use today, which was a revolution seen from inside - is only a detail looking from the outside - and even for us, we have chosen a mix between a C kite and a bow kite today
A really revolutionary idea might come, you never know - could be exiting - but it could also be "slow evolution" only, or just gimmics in order to try to catch more of the market
Just my (boring) thoughts...
Peter