Looking for Directional for Wife to learn on

[flyingcamel]

id second the jester, im too big for it and use the duke instead but its a super stable board that you can walk around on no problem. Def stepped up my strappless game alot and am nailing my foot changes and ducktacks with a much higher percentage. I also recently tried some wakesurfers from slingshot i believe and they are also a good size for her but waay more slippy but kinda fun is you like to do slidey transitions

[Bushflyr]

NHK, you're not "wrong", just using a different technique, one that is appropriate if you're really well powered. Jzh is talking about going upwind toeside and basically only riding a single stance. If you do that you need more foot freedom because of the difficulty of holding the rail toeside without fatiguing your foot like you would without moving it across to the front rail.

On a surfboard moving your weight forward allows the board to plane with less resistance which lets you point higher. Also riding the board flat does the same thing. Moving back allows snappy turns, sinking the tail to slow down, and more fin engagement. Any reasonable weight distribution can be achieved with any reasonable foot position, but moving your feet around allows you to do it with less fatigue.

To go upwind, in "normal" wind I'll use my same front foot position, maybe slid 3" or so toward the heel rail, and put my back foot just in front of the rear strap. If the wind is lighter you need to ride flatter and pivot the board off the fins more to steer upwind rather than carve. As the wind gets stronger you can move you back foot back into the strap and transfer weight aft until you're fully lit and pulling off the fins as hard as you can.

For any given rider, board, and wind speed (in general) the proper weight distribution doesn't change much, however the foot position you use to achieve that distribution can vary.

[NHKitesurfer]

NHK, you're not "wrong", just using a different technique, one that is appropriate if you're really well powered. Jzh is talking about going upwind toeside and basically only riding a single stance. If you do that you need more foot freedom because of the difficulty of holding the rail toeside without fatiguing your foot like you would without moving it across to the front rail.

On a surfboard moving your weight forward allows the board to plane with less resistance which lets you point higher. Also riding the board flat does the same thing. Moving back allows snappy turns, sinking the tail to slow down, and more fin engagement. Any reasonable weight distribution can be achieved with any reasonable foot position, but moving your feet around allows you to do it with less fatigue.

To go upwind, in "normal" wind I'll use my same front foot position, maybe slid 3" or so toward the heel rail, and put my back foot just in front of the rear strap. If the wind is lighter you need to ride flatter and pivot the board off the fins more to steer upwind rather than carve. As the wind gets stronger you can move you back foot back into the strap and transfer weight aft until you're fully lit and pulling off the fins as hard as you can.

For any given rider, board, and wind speed (in general) the proper weight distribution doesn't change much, however the foot position you use to achieve that distribution can vary.

Hey Thanks!! I'm still learning and have a long way to go. One reason I ride strapless is because when I am most comfortable, either going upwind or up and down waves my feet are never where the straps would be. Maybe close on my back foot most of the time but my front foot is either way out in front of where the strap would go or way near the toeside edge. This placement is where I'm most comfortable and I attribute that to me being 6ft 4inches and having a somewhat wide stance.

Toeside seems to be a bit more conventional and as you described above.

[BrunoC]

I'm no pro but on my slingshot celaritas I am never centered over the strap area. I move around quite a bit depending on which direction I am headed, chop, etc. on the Jester, especially in quad fin setup I am much more centered over the strap area but still move around quite a bit to trim the board. Overall even though it is smaller and narrower, the Jester is easier to ride and jibe than my Celeritas.

[Bushflyr]

@NHK What size board? And what weight? Also what wind speed and kite size? If I had to take a guess it sounds like you're riding a smallish board, well powered. This allows you to put your back foot on the fins for max grip and make trim (planing) adjustments with your front foot. Which you get away with comfortably because of your inseam. Just a guess though.

For OP: I recommend a cheap surfboard not so much because she's going to beat it up but because it's senseless to waste a ton of money on a board you may not like. And at this point she's too new to know. Buy a cheap beater, ride the crap out of it, and by the time it gives up the ghost she'll have a reasonable idea what she wants out of a board and how she wants it to handle. Personally I've owned and/or ridden a ton of boards and I'm completely done with most of the boards from kite companies. They're just TOO stiff. Flex and rebound are super important for a quality ride, but difficult to reconcile with a strapped board that manufacturers know some yahoo is going to boost huge on then come back and blame them for the broken board.

[Slappysan]

The question that needs answering is does your wife surf?

Because if she does and she's looking for a board that she can do proper bottom turns on I would recommend one of the many kite specific surf boards out there.

Odds are though that she's just out to have fun and ride some waves, which in that case you should go with the OR Jester or the BRM Paipo / Shinnster. Both these boards are so much easier to ride than a traditional surfboard it's crazy. Neither of them are really suited for "surfing a wave" though, they are for kitesurfing in waves. The Shinnster is the absolute easiest board to ride and makes your riding look smooth and effortless. It rides as well backwards as it does forwards so when you are just learning a directional and you are in a situation where you don't want to tack/gybe you just move your feet (and have your nose waxed) and avoid that nasty closeout. It's too loose to hold a proper bottom turn and too heavy to do strapless airs though. The Jester on the other hand is great for strapless airs.

Also note that the Jester and Shinnster/Paipo are made in a construction that allows you to forget about dings. You need to land your kite at a sketchy launch but don't want to use one hand to hold your surfboard? That's fine with these boards, they'll be okay just washing up on the beach.

If you want the absolute easiest board to learn to jibe on then go with width, the Slingshot Space Pickle / North Nugget type of board. I'd get it in wake construction too, not kite construction and the sup style grab handle in the Slingshot Alien Twister is a must for shorter armed folks. Pick up a closeout for $270:

http://www.evo.com/outlet/wakesurf-boar ... -4-top.jpg

To make it easier to tack and more playful in the waves remove the 2 rear fins (and upgrade the 2 front ones from the plastic crap it comes with).

[Disclaimer] My views on the Jester are based on the Duke, I haven't actually tried the Jester but assuming your wife is smaller than me it's probably similar to me on a Duke.

[Bushflyr]

Neither of them are really suited for "surfing a wave" though, they are for kitesurfing in waves.

Word. And this is an important distinction. My views are biased by the fact that I ride the same board I would surf (if I didn't have to paddle in all the time ) and I use the smallest kite I reasonably can to tow in to the waves. Then I surf the waves without kite power. Most people, IMO, use too small a board and too much kite. But that's just my opinion.

Except for those people that claim they "surf the waves" on a TT, they're just silly.

[NHKitesurfer]

Bushflyr thanks for the advice and info. I weigh 205 pounds and I'm on a SlingShot T-Rex (now the Angry Swallow) 5'4" board with the chopped tip. And I meant to say my front foot is on the heel-side edge not toeside cuz that would look awfully funny and be very painful.

[Jwoo]

We're still researching. There's lots of great suggestions here. Almost too many I think an old surfboard might be a good idea, but where we live it's a pain to get equipment, used or otherwise. If we're going to go to the effort to get a board, we need to get something that will last.

Yes she surfs, we were both surfers (for more years than I want to mention) before we started kiting. We learned to kite when all the sand at our local break was stripped away by a hurricane, destroying the surf until recently. We were going out of our minds not having waves. Now we both find that most of the time we'd rather kite! For her to make the transition to a surfboard easier, we don't mind buying a more stable board to learn, and have fun on for now, then something else later if she decides to venture out into the surf.

In an ideal world we’d kite and surf on the same board, but we're both getting older and don't pop up as fast as we used to paddle surfing. I ride a minimum 6'6" and her a 6'4" to be able to compete with the younger surfers. Our surfboards have too much volume for kiting. I kite on a 5'4" Vanguard, and for kiting it far outperforms anything I can think of that I could paddle and still compete with younger surfers. I would imagine whatever she winds up with for kiting will outperform anything she can paddle into waves with also.

We have a while before we go up to the U.S. where we can buy a board, so we’ll keep reading….lots of great ideas. Thanks!

[Bushflyr]

If you're down in La Ventana you should have plenty of opportunity to pick up boards this winter when people are leaving. Plenty of people would rather sell their board than pay to take it back to the US or EU.