board dude wrote:At Nomad we have been using carbon fibre for over 11 years, its for sure a material which has alot of marketing about it , alot of image and alot of facts unknown by the general public.
All twintips have flex , when you ride a twintip it bends into a shape by the load your pushing on it and the water pushing back.
The trick is to have the board bend into the rocker shape that is efficient and clean in the water. Fibreglass twintips that have too much flex bend to much and produce a negative rocker line
between the footstraps. The water flowing over a negative rocker line produces drag , the board has a stick to the water feel and requires huge power from the kite to drive and definitely
no upwind .
Back to carbon fibre, a well designed carbon twintip is much the same as a carbon fibre windsurf mast , a windsurf sail in windy gusts bends away - the mast distorts and rapidly returns to its shape, if the setup is good the rider is not aware of these movements and has a continue constant power drive.
The same effect is created by a well sorted carbon fibre twintip, the carbon fibre reflex is very quick and maintains your rockerline at its pre-designed optimized shape. you will always be able to design more flex into a carbon board than a fibre board before you reach the issue of a negative rockerline.
A flexi board hits chop - bends and absorbs the movement and continues on its course with minimal disruption , a rigid board hits the chop - remains stiff and pushes the twintip on to a new
course, the impact is also passed on to the rider who continually has to arrange a new position. A good carbon twintip is always going to be smoother in chop and give a much more constant ride.
On top of that gain of a smooth and efficient ride you also have the same effect from the input of the rider .The rider is constantly changing the pressure he is putting through the kiteboard , it can be from gusts hitting the kite , it can be from turning the kite or simply changing direction going higher upwind or downwind . Once again the carbon board bends under the load and quickly returns back to its optimized shape and maintains a constant speed, more so than a standard fibre board.
Efficiency is mentioned here many times , an efficient rocker line is fast to plane holds a very high upwind angle and requires far less power from the kite, and can mean taking a smaller size kite. An efficient rockerline is a shape that has gentle curves with no sudden changes in shape, the flex is achieved by layup and core shaping .
Its not quite as easy as laminating a twintip with carbon fibre and bingo you have a great kiteboard , the whole system must be balanced with a great rockerline and flex in specific areas. Cnc machines are the only way to achieve such detailed core shapes and repeat the process. There are also many shape options that can be equated into the twintip, tunnel concave , flat concave , lifted convex rails , channels are a few important features .
Simon worked with the early kiteboard twintips and in 2001 established Nomad kiteboarding in Tarifa , in 2003 Nomad introduced the first carbon laminates using the above concepts.
http://www.nomadkiteboarding.com/index.html 
