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best SUP for super light wind kiting

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edt
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Re: best SUP for super light wind kiting

Postby edt » Sat Dec 09, 2017 8:39 pm

those 100cm wide raceboards are such dogs in chop, they nearly shake your legs off. Not fun! They are made to go fast if you aren't allowed to use a hydrofoil in a race not for comfort.

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Re: best SUP for super light wind kiting

Postby tautologies » Sat Dec 09, 2017 8:58 pm

edt wrote:
Sat Dec 09, 2017 8:39 pm
those 100cm wide raceboards are such dogs in chop, they nearly shake your legs off. Not fun! They are made to go fast if you aren't allowed to use a hydrofoil in a race not for comfort.
haha, well I kind of enjoed that part of the raceboards.

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Re: best SUP for super light wind kiting

Postby Ittiandro » Sat Dec 09, 2017 10:51 pm

Deleted. see next
Last edited by Ittiandro on Sat Dec 09, 2017 10:56 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: best SUP for super light wind kiting

Postby Ittiandro » Sat Dec 09, 2017 10:54 pm

Matteo V wrote:
Sat Dec 09, 2017 3:51 pm

You are still trying to make your kite experience harder AND less exciting. No one teaches kiteboarding to beginners on SUP's for good reason - no one would want to continue, as they would have more fun with a paddle in their hand. I know your line of thinking on this. Lots of us, including me had your same thoughts. Lots of other people gave advice not to do it. Still, I and many others with your same thoughts gave SUP kiting a go. No we would not ever think of doing it again. And we always recommend against it.

I am pretty sure you can't be talked out of this path. But one day you will be just like me giving advice that someone down the line. And from your own experience, you will be saying don't do this.
Matteo

Thanks for your advice and you frank speaking.
Kite Supping (if feasible) would be for me an enjoyable alternative to windsurfing, while still giving me the opportunity of being out in the open, exploring the surroundings and enjoying the freedom of unconfined spaces...

It would help me in my choice if you could tell me more specifically why you have been turned away from SUP kiting. Just curious.

I would totally agree with you if the reasons are that SUP's simply don't move with kites,( therefore are boring..) or move too slowly or they are uncontrollable and are therefore unsafe. If these are the reasons , indeed they are serious and objective enough to be taken into consideration before investing any money ..

One wonders though why, in spite of what you say, there are so many people doing and enjoying it. Just look at the wealth of videos on Youtube, showing people happily kiting on SUP's, many at lively speeds, without any apparent loss of control or direction.

Even in this Forum , in an another thread , people have posted saying that they do it and are happy.. Even manufacturers have kites for SUP's and they have videos on them..

This tells me that the reasons why people like you don't go for it have perhaps more to do with personal preference . Indeed, we all speak, inevitably, from our own perspective and we may be all right or wrong.

When I was white- water canoeing, for instance, years ago, and we happened on a flat stretch of water, on a lake or a river, I remember that all my adrenaline-driven mates would get terribly bored, some would even... swear and couldn't wait to be back to..serious business on the raging river, while I was quite happy to slow down and look around at the wilderness...
There would be no point in warning against one ( white water) in favour of the other ( flat water) or viceversa , unless one was always to risk life and limb by engaging in it, as I (and most of us ) would by snowboarding 1000 ft vertical cliffs or climbing the Patrona towers in Kuala Lumpur with ..suction cups..

For my part, when I see scores of adrenaline-bound kiteboarders shuttling back and forth full speed on the same 100 mt long stretch of water, for hours on hand, I cannot help thinking how boring it would be for me. just as it is boring for you ( and may be for others) to kite on a SUP.
Even the last time I was down in Cuba, I had the same feeling watching kiteboarders shuttling on 2 ft of water , 20 ft from the shore.. . For me the fun would have been to be out in the Ocean , like when I did it on a Katamaran.

As you said, I'll probably try it as soon as I am on the money and I decide which kite, No easy task indeed, considering the confusing maze of products available and the hundred of opinions, often diverging on the same model and brand, precisely because of the personal element injected by different people in their opinions..

Ittiandro
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Re: best SUP for super light wind kiting

Postby ronnie » Sun Dec 10, 2017 6:06 pm

Many years ago, in the days of directionals and a 4.9m Flexifoil Blade, I tried to convert a 222cm 80 litre custom windsurf wave board to kite with.
The rails, being thick and rounded, had no grip to push against, and too much volume to bury the rail. When I tried to bury the rail, my hips went up and my shoulders went underwater. It was obvious that it wouldn't work well, so I scrapped it and got this 207 by 49cm kite board directional - which worked well, partly because of the thinner, sharper rails.
207cmx49cm.jpg
Rail volume is one specific problem with SUPs.

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Re: best SUP for super light wind kiting

Postby Ittiandro » Sun Dec 10, 2017 7:06 pm

edt wrote:
Sat Dec 09, 2017 8:33 pm
SUP kiting can't go as low as a race twintip for instance on a SUP you can't go in as light wind as you do with the flysurfer fly race twintip. The lowest wind kiting is done with hydrofoils which can go 5 knots lower than a SUP or a twintip. Even though a SUP provides a lot of flotation it doesn't provide the proper center support like you have on for instance a wind surfer that you need in order to edge. The tail fins are insufficient to provide enough grip in the water. What you have to do in order to kite with a SUP is to use the entire rail of the SUP, dig it into the water in order to provide an edge. Because of this you need enough wind to be able to edge a SUP. SUP kiting is not for low wind. Hydrofoiling is light wind kiting. Notice I started this thread above 4 or 5 years ago before I got both my SUP and my hydrofoil and experience on both. Now I know better! :-) I still have my SUP and will take it out with a kite but I only use it to take a cooler of beer to a little island near by.
EDT
I don't have a SUP, but a Windsup. Maybe this can make a difference. It is an 11 ft long Bic Windsup , which I fitted with a longer fin to replace the standard Dolphin fin which was useless. I can easily bank on the rails to control it and it also has a centerboard which helps to go upwind. So maybe it wouldn't be that bad with a kite.

Anyway, if you can get to your island with your SUP and kite, it means that you can still move around.. which is enough for me. I do not expect to go supersonic.

The only thing which worried me at first is the safety aspect. As I said elsewhere, some , including an Ozone rep, warned me against kiting on SUP. They say that a SUP is too floaty, hard to bank on the rails and therefore hard to control. It would drift downwind. From what I see on videos on the internet, though, the larger SUPS can track pretty well on the water with kites and are fully controllable. As usually truth is somewhere in the middle.

On another note, assuming that I'll try Supkiting , there seems to be a bewildering confusion about the recommended kite sizes for my weight and the light wind conditions in which I'd be sailing.

I weigh 85 kg and my typical wind range would be 12-15 knots..There is a myriad of charts on the Internet, but the recommended sizes for the very same conditions can vary between 10 m2 or, in some cases ,less ( trainer kites)and and a whopping 17 m2(?) depending on the brands. A 7 m2 gap seems to be excessive
( see https://www.google.ca/searchq=Wind+rang ... 0&dpr=1.13 .

I don't mind having an upward margin of 1 or 2 sizes, but buying a 17 m2 kite where a 10 or 11 m2 size would do, is not only considerably more expensive, but also possibly unsafe, if the winds pick up, especially for a beginner.

May be you can comment on this

Thanks

Ittiandro

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Re: best SUP for super light wind kiting

Postby rynhardt » Sun Dec 10, 2017 7:27 pm

Assuming that the board will probably have enough volume to support your weight, a smaller kite will be easier to manage.
Something like a 3 strut freeride kite around the 7m size?

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Re: best SUP for super light wind kiting

Postby edt » Sun Dec 10, 2017 8:40 pm

Ittiandro wrote:
Sun Dec 10, 2017 7:06 pm

EDT
I don't have a SUP, but a Windsup. Maybe this can make a difference. It is an 11 ft long Bic Windsup , which I fitted with a longer fin to replace the standard Dolphin fin which was useless. I can easily bank on the rails to control it and it also has a centerboard which helps to go upwind. So maybe it wouldn't be that bad with a kite.
That SUP you have sounds pretty good actually. I highly suggest learning on a twintip first tho, kite skills come first before board skills and it's a lot easier to learn how to kite on a twintip than SUP.

As for safety, I'm not sure what the problem is. I get into situations all the time where I snap lines, I go out when it's too light and can't relaunch, I get downwinded. So what do I do? I swim! Not sure why anyone would think swimming back to shore with a kite is dangerous, I mean I guess if you're careless you can't get tangled in your lines so don't do that. Almost all the danger in kiteboarding is in high winds, 30 knots and above. Below 20 knots it's pretty hard to kill yourself in this sport. If I were in your shoes, here's what I would do. Quit screwing around on this forum asking questions, go find your nearest kite school walk up to them and say "Teach me how to kiteboard" and they will have some kites and boards you can buy. Then after about 6 months when you are no longer a raw beginner, get on your SUP with your kite. Windsurfing is a lot different from kiteboarding. Windsurfing you don't need anyone to teach you nothing. You can just get up on your board and start practicing right away. Kiteboarding you have to learn how to body drag it's one of the single most essential skills and if nobody tells you, you might never learn about it. You have to learn about water relaunching, how to help launch, how to land, none of this you can learn just by experimenting, either get a teacher or if you are bound and determined to do this the hard way at least buy the "Progression Kiteboarding" DVD which runs about $40.

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Re: best SUP for super light wind kiting

Postby Slappysan » Sun Dec 10, 2017 8:42 pm

12-15 knots is 12m wind.

Also I kite SUP on my inflatible Uli 10-0, which has small surf fins and very round rails and I can bury them and go upwind easily in as low as 8 knots.

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Re: best SUP for super light wind kiting

Postby Ittiandro » Sun Dec 10, 2017 9:14 pm

edt wrote:
Sun Dec 10, 2017 8:40 pm
Ittiandro wrote:
Sun Dec 10, 2017 7:06 pm

EDT
I don't have a SUP, but a Windsup. Maybe this can make a difference. It is an 11 ft long Bic Windsup , which I fitted with a longer fin to replace the standard Dolphin fin which was useless. I can easily bank on the rails to control it and it also has a centerboard which helps to go upwind. So maybe it wouldn't be that bad with a kite.
That SUP you have sounds pretty good actually. I highly suggest learning on a twintip first tho, kite skills come first before board skills and it's a lot easier to learn how to kite on a twintip than SUP.

Of course , I'll eventually take a course. This was in the plans, but it won't be before ..6 months because winter is on its way.
Until then, I'am ..""screwing around" in this Forum, because the more info I get, the easier will be to balance out the different opinions( sometimes very different!) floating around , sometimes on the basis of no more than personal preferences..
Before I let go of this, though, can you or anybody tell me what is a twintip kite , though? In a few words, what does it do and what is the advantage?

Thanks

Ittiandro


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