I just want to know how many of you guys share my pain. In wind between 10 to 20 knots i find kites absolutely killing windsurfers for speed. why is this happening, i thought windsurfers were way faster than kites?
any thoughts?

I would like to say it's because

10-20 knots is not a wind it's a light breeze

above 20-30 knots, kiters go hiding under their dooners.

The reality is a kiter can find flat water in 2-3" of water where wind surfers can't venture that shallow.

Introduce a bit of chop to the equation and you have a total different scenario, the kiter's struggle to hold an edge.

Respect goes to anybody to who pushes their limits.

So what have you done Fob?

or are you just trying to stir the pot?

Remember

Action talks and bull**** walks.

GPS cuts the crap

...... Should add locally most of the kite dudes here are into freestyle and waves, and not speed, so have never had a kiter faster than me, but I'm sure there's plenty of them that are, particularly if they wanna be.

Plus I make sure I learn to sail as fast as I can, and have the right gear....... That's what GPS is all about, learning to sail faster, and being objective about it.

The fastest, I;ve ever sailed is high 35's, have done lots of 35's seem stuck there, need new gear, and the other day I swore I did a 38 knot run, everything my brain and body told me said this is the fastest you've ever sailed by a long way!! It felt by far the fastest I've ever sailed, and I was totally shattered to look down at the gps dial and see a 33something......... GPS cuts the bullschit!!!!! Later analysis explained the issue was water state, I sailed at a different spot, it was much choppier, than Hardie's run, and therefore slower, but felt faster, much more was happening.

just planeing elmo nothing heroic. but i recon that kites could
have more potential in speed like when the technology gets better cause windsurfers have been around for like 30 years and kites only 5 or so? both windsurfers and kites will get faster for sure but in the end what will go the fastest?

i think windsurfing will always be faster, just look at design and the shape of a kiteboard , it is not flat or has stabilty for speed, yes it can go at high speed but control is not there in high wind going from my experience at watching them and racing side by side next to them, i have never had a kiteboard pass me on the flat water in 12 + knots, we get lift from our fin where they don't have the abilty from what i see to get lift unless they use a huge bloody kite.
that's my opinion
i'm GCmoz

Joined:5 May 2007
Last Here:6 May 2007 26,33 40 44 post
Joined:5 May 2007
Last Here:6 May 2007 44 post
ya got im, 44 a piece , an you can switch back to ya alter ego now

who you referring to ???
me ????
speak up !

ahhhhhhh ok,

fob = full of bull*%$#
???

but u gotta admit it keeps the forum exciting [}:)]

Ahahahah elmo lol

You're orright monsta,

Anyone who persists with linux after the first install must be a bit 'special' anyway

With a kite:

I haven't seen Tilmann's, but I saw Vide from Melbourne's. I've seen lots of speed kiting, I can't say it ever struck me as looking easy. The stance you take looks like there is a bucketload of strain on the body, which there is. What I found to be my limiting factor was the strain on my legs. I was wearing a waist harness and using a freestyle board, the guys who get the good times with kites have seat harnesses and custom boards. If you look closely they only have one rear fin, when I did that time I could actually feel the resistance of my other fin as the water blasted against it.

Anyway I suspect a seat harness may have reduced the strain on my body somewhat, but I can't remember the strain on the lower back as much as I can remember the strain on the legs, but that was massive.

With regards to the boards required, wouldn't a speed orientated water ski be the go, like the ones they use for the Murray River between the bridges runs.
Some of those guys are doing up to and past 70mph.

Harden up geenpat !!!
too much of what ever ?????
fuull on or fall off

the gps says 39.4 or something, i am an amateur and i am going at 37 - 38 knott on a bigboard (125 lt)

they really got to do something about there boards the kiters if they want speed !!!!

Hey Decrepit,

I reckon Ubuntu must be a bit easier than the old RedHat 7.0 I last tried with... couldn't get the sound to work, didn't like the "vibes" it gave off.

Yep I'm running Mac OS X, all the unix goodness in a package that's designed to all fit together snugly. Running PHP, MySQL, Apache for website testing, full gcc development environment with make, avr-gcc installed as well for programming chips, full java suite, as well as a couple of emulators for testing windows installations (XP and Win98).

Those new MacBook intel laptops are looking pretty sweet, I've got to say... native execution of windows stuff in a special program, no more emulators, that'll be my next machine... if only they came in a 12"