In our first article up on the site Rob talks about what he considers important in buying a surfboard for kitesurfing.
So, how do I choose a (strapless) surfboard for kiting? Well this question comes up all the time:
“I want to start kiting on a surfboard—what’s the best size?”
OK, let’s give this one a shot. To answer bluntly – it’s complicated. And, it depends.
It depends on what you want/like to do; it depends on the conditions; it depends on your weight. And it depends on whether you want to ride strapped or strapless. I don’t ride straps, so, for the purpose of this article, we’re going to concentrate on a strapless board. I Tried straps in the early days and they drove me mad — no matter where I put the straps, they seem to be in the wrong place about 80% of the time and it ruined the experience for me. You have to make a lot of compromises with straps so the board needs to be quite different from a strapless board. A board with straps has to be stronger, heavier, made of different materials and It’ll probably also be smaller.
But let’s get back to the task at hand: How to choose a strapless surfboard for kiting. One of the coolest things about kiting is that as long as there’s a(reasonably) flat surface that you can stand on you can ride just about anything that floats. I’ve kited on chunks of discarded plywood, skimboards, boogie boards, a 9 ft malibu, lie-lows, SUPs – even a queen-sized inflatable air mattress! It’s always a load of fun just to see what’s possible but finding a proper surfboard that works just right for kiting is quite a different story. In short, it’s a bit complicated.
If you want to paddle surf, you have to have a board that floats well, planes easily so you can catch the wave, and turns easily so you can do more than just ride in a straight line. All these requirements have to be factored into the design of the board. A board for kiting doesn’t need to be paddled, so it could in theory be smaller and thinner. You’ve got the kite producing loads of power so it doesn’t need to turn as easily. You’ll be travelling a lot faster so the toe-in on the fins is going to need to be less, else you’ll feel like you’re dragging an anchor behind you. So, with those initial things in mind, just grabbing a board that’s a good paddle surfing board is not necessarily going to make for a good surfboard for kiting.
For kiting a surfboard needs a lot of things to be just right: precisely balanced, finely tweaked and J U S T right in every way–to a point that even small things like a couple of mm here and there on the rail, thickness, rocker, width and length can make a huge difference in how the board surfs. A rail too hard or too soft and it all comes apart. Too much flotation and it bounces; too little flotation and it drags; too much width and it skates; too little width and it sinks, etc. And because there are so many interactive variables, it’s not a simple thing to get it all right at once: Everything else can be right but all it takes is for one thing to be off and the board rides like a heap of rubbish.
So, let’s have a crack at it.
Disclaimer: OK, up front here and now: This is an article, it’s not a science paper. It’s not based on any calculations, computer modelling or other theoretical foundations. It’s simply my empirical observations; there are no data presented so it’s just my personal opinion. You’re sure to find that others who will disagree with many of the things I have to say here so let me preface this and say that what follows here is my personal experience and recommendations from about eight years of riding strapless boards. Everybody comes at this from their own personal experiences. It’d be great to see someone do so proper science on this but to date, I haven’t seen it. And also, just so you know, in everything I deal with here, we’re talking STRAPLESS riding. If you’re looking for a board to ride with straps, you may want to take someone else’s advice – I’ve never been able to get a surfboard with straps to work for me. No matter where I’ve tried to put the straps, they seem to be in the wrong place about 80% of the time. But I’ve been kiting on strapless surfboards since about 2004 and I’ve ridden loads of them. Some of them are awesome; some of them not so awesome and some of them are absolutely horrible.
So, with all that in mind, let’s take a look at what to consider, where to start and how to pick one that’ll be good for you.
My first recommendation is to start by pushing your ‘Reset Button‘ on what constitutes a good surfboard for kiting—especially if you also surf. I’ve currently got about 10 surfboards of various shapes and sizes and IMHO, none of those boards are good for kiting, for a number of reasons. So, let’s start fresh.
Some folks argue that you can carry one board and use it for both kiting and surfing, but I don’t agree. My boards for kiting are very different from my boards I ride for surfing. There may be the odd person lucky enough to be able to use the same board for both but I suspect it would end up being a compromise both ways. One of the factors seems to be your height. The taller you are the worse the disconnect between surfing boards and kiting boards. Tall people need longer boards for surfing, but not so much for kiting.
TIP 1 : SIZE—BIGGER IS NOT ALWAYS BETTER.
OK, let’s start with the basics: Catching a wave. When you’re surfing, before you can ride the wave you have to catch the wave—to catch the wave, the board has to plane. What that means is that it has to sit high enough in the water to pick up speed while you’re paddling, so that by the time the wave gets to you, you’re travelling at roughly the same speed as the wave. If you’re not moving fast enough you won’t catch the wave. If your board is under water the entire time you’re paddling, you’re never going to plane. If you’re moving too slowly the wave will just roll under you before you can get on it. A board that’s too thin or with insufficient volume will force you to take off later and later so that in order to catch the wave you’ll need to be sitting practically under the lip to have any hope of getting on it. The steeper, more critical the takeoff, the faster you have to get to your feet before the wave pitches you. That’s why, as the surf gets bigger and bigger, you see surfers ride bigger and bigger boards. Big boards float high in the water and are easy to get on the plane and into the wave as it approaches. On really big waves you’ll see guys with huge boards (9ft+) sometimes actually catching the wave even before it breaks.
Bigger waves also tend to travel faster, making it even harder to paddle at wave speed, but a bigger board gives you the advantage because you can paddle it faster. Within limits, the higher a board sits in the water (generally speaking) the faster it will paddle.
If you didn’t have to paddle, a board for just riding a wave would ideally be a fair bit smaller than a board that has to both ride the wave and CATCH the wave. If you don’t have to worry about paddling to catch the wave and just want to surf, you can get by with a much smaller board with a lot less volume, which will make it much more manoeuvrable and a lot more fun to ride. And that’s the primary reason that the guys being towed in to those huge waves at places like Jaws on the jetskis are actually riding relatively small boards–They don’t have to paddle.
So, generally, when you’re surfing, you want a board with some volume that sits relatively high in the water, but not so high that you can’t dig the rail in when you need to in order to turn or hold the line in the barrel or going down the line of a steep wave. Too much volume and the board will tend to want to ride up the face of the wave and try and roll you. Too little volume and it sits too deep and the rails grab and keep you from getting any speed, or keep you from catching the wave in the first place.
When you’re kiting, the equation changes in a few ways. Firstly, like with tow-in surfing, you don’t have to paddle so you don’t need lots of volume to make the board sit on top of the water and plane. (But unlike tow-surfing, you’re generally not going to be riding 20Ft+ waves!)
Take-away idea #1: SIZE: The size for an ideal surfboard for kiting: smaller than the board you ride for surfing.
[button color=”blue ” size=”small” link=”http://www.kitesurfing.com.au/?p=3319″ target=”blank” ]Part 2 -> [/button]
Below are some photos highlighting different types and shapes of surfboards.