I agree Samio as most kiters in my area are ex sailboarders and me and my mates have done it since the very early 80's. I can understand how the new wake style guys into kiting piss the sailboards off because they get under my skin too. All I know is when I'm out kiting I feel the same as I did when I sailed so for me it's much of the same thing. I must say I laugh at these guys on sailboards now who try tricks when they can't even jybe, if they spent half the time trying to learn to jybe as they do showing off to kiters then they would be a complete sailboarder.

I could do double loops before I could get planing

Trust me, they are not doing freestyle to impress the kiters

WOW, im actually amazed at how quickly this has gone off topic, normally it takes at least 2 pages. hahaha.
see you on the water.

I will never become a compleat windsurfer...

-It is simply a love-and-hate relationship, even though I get anoyed when the kitesurfers take up all the space with their lines going everywhere, I think it looks pretty cool! In fact, I wouldn´t mind learning it in the far future - kind a like golf, you know...

Saw that the other day and didnt quite get it!!! Maybe a kiter can explain to an older "less fashionable" windsurfer. What is the purpose of wearing boardies over the top of a wettie? Still waiting to see this look hit the catwalks of Paris or the front row of the Sydney Mardi Gras.

... and same same by windsurfers down at Brighton/Scabs

re: the sailers trying tricks when they cant gybe. As said it aint for the kiters, to me gybing arent the most exciting moves and I dont mind falling in at summer time. Read once that you would never see Josh stone gybe, ok this is the extreme but I guess he fell in alot getting there. Plus if I want to gybe I will do so when it is cold or in the deep where the fish with big teeth live (beyond the distance that most kites go ), in close I try something else or push that gybe a little harder and generally fall off. But I admit I am crap at gybing but never really practiced it.

samio ... i gotta disagree with you on the upwind ability of kites. I come from about 20 years wavesailing and 4 years or so kiting and it's my experience that a kite will easily out point a waveboard at least... perhaps not a slalom board though.

The reason I mentioned jybing which must of been silly of me was just the times I remember heading out through surf to be confronted with a looming closed out section, maybe I should have thrown a trick transition to add to the terror of being pounded into the reef. I chickened out with a nice controlled boring jybe to live again.
Good jybing technique on a sailboard does take time to master and I can't think of anything in kiting that is as techinical as a flat water jybe with good exit speed unless you start doing handel passes. Some times I feel ashamed at how easy kiting is and the fact that my hands are soft and without calluses.
Like this thread started out about I still respect and admire windsurfing with most of my best memories with a sail and not a kite but the body is not up to scratch to windsurf any more so I kite and it's kind of funny to hear the talk on the beach about how sailboarding is for the old guys, I think the kiters who think this have it wrong and are wasting their youth.

And with onshore winds.... which we normally get here....

what the @#$% are you doing sitting on your surfboard in a place used by kiters or windsurfers in onshore winds?
im a surfer and get @#$%ed if im gonna grovel at scabs in 15 plus knots of onshore slop!
to tell you the truth id rather be windsurfing hence thats why i bloody took it up!
go find another place to surf! trigg???
guys like this sh1t me
theres nothing worse than surfers sitting right in the zone where i need to bottom turn or even hit the lip etc etc
thats why windsurfers/kiters sail so close maybe they get the hint to piss off its too dangerous and let us windwankers have a turn?
i got another idea maybe go surfing when its offshore?
dont they read the sign on the tracks down to the beach?
its a white sign with blue writing and a piture of a windsurfer on it?
WINDSURFERS FREQUENT AREA?
i see a sign that says train crossing ahead i dont go play on the tracks!?
and even if there are no signs i dont bloody go play on them!
use YOUR common sense and note where kiters and windsurfers hang
coz getting hit by accident which can happen by a kiteboard or sailboard at full speed could really hurt and a train would hurt too

Hey fish whats with the attitude!!!!!!!
Sounds to me like you windsurf because you can't surf in the first place.

As far as surfing somewhere else..... dude there is a whole ocean to SHARE. The point I was making is, why do kiters insist on buzzing surfer? There is simply no need to sail within 2 meters of someone else. I'm not surfing in places were there are sailors already out.

Let's hope a train finds you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I luv youze guyz!!

I dont know how it got to be an "anti Kite" post, i originally posted here saying how much i RESPECTED your sport. And its turned out to be how sissy kitesurfing is. Wrong attitude guys.