Slappysan wrote: ↑Mon Feb 19, 2018 8:14 pm
I know you ride a LF kitefish so you wont experience this with that board at all because it weighs a ton and is pretty low volume. If you have access to a light weight 35L + board take it out and practice standing still on top of it and see how much kite force you need to stay dry.
I broke all of them. I never had a kitesurfboard or surfboard that I tried to kite that was over around 40l. Windsurfboards are so bad as kiteboards, that there is really no value in my experience there.
The kite fish was what I came to at the end of buying lots of production kitesurfboards. Once I was forced to ride the KiteFish, and I hated it at first, I grew to love it and realized it's positive attributes. Almost all of these I believed to be negatives at the beginning:
1. Low volume means your feet are closer to the planing surface and the "moment" induced by high volume was nearly eliminated so the board handles/ responds better when pushed hard.
2. High weight means that the board, for as flat as it is, sticks on the water at high speed through chop.
3. Low rocker/short length means that you do not have the swing length of a traditional kitesurfboard and can fit in troughs that you never could with long kitesurfboard.
4. Low rocker/short length means you also have good upwind capabilities in a compact waterline at low speeds and do not catch too much wind with a turned up long nose like you would on a traditional kitesurfboard at high speeds.
5. Dura-frickin-bility! No longer did I have to buy a new production kitesurfboard and immediately put another 6oz deck patch on top of it (I did 6oz and a Kevlar patch once - that was the only board that never broke....well at least not in that patch area)
6. Straps allow you to pressure the wide fish tail in such a manner that allows you to ride the steepest of ocean faces, but then go back to having a wide tail when you want/need it.
7. Even with being sold on the "cool-aid" of strapless at first, I came to realize straps were what gave me more G's and the ability to really push the limits of kitesurfing. And this board really only mows the lawn when strapless. So being a board that requires the straps to do it all with, I almost always ride it strapped. This is the best property of the board - keeping the straps on for more fun which the board is tough enough to take.
Slappysan wrote: ↑Mon Feb 19, 2018 8:14 pm
When you ride boards like this and the wind lulls out you get that typical sinking feeling at first but then the buoyancy will kick in as you slow down and you'll find it reaches an equilibrium where on a no volume board you would have just sank.
And again, I am a complete failure in getting across the concept of displacement, Sub planing (plowing), and planing. If the forward movement of the board is around 2knots or more, you can see that planing forces have taken over. Just look down at your board and if the water has "fallen off" the back of the tail, (sub)planing forces are the only thing acting on the board. ONLY when you have the board sunk, is volume relevant as a force holding you up.
If by that last part, you are talking about the 2 non-kitesurfing pics previously posted, that never happens in a useful manner. If submerged volume was a useful thing in kiting:
1. TT boards would have volume added to their decks
2. Old school kiterace boards would have volumes approaching the displacement of the rider (did not really exceed half of that)
3. There would be more than 1% of kiters using higher volume funboard surfboards
4. There would be some displacement only (catamaran board, or sailboat mono-hull) kiteboards on the market
I hate to do this 2 times in a month, but let me make your argument against mine, for you.
You can, and some kiters actually do, ride a high volume longboard or SUP board. This is negated simply by the fact that these hinder so much of the performance potential of a kite, that almost no one does this - or only tries it once.
There is a split second where a 75kg rider has just sunk a 40l board to where the deck is covered, but the feet of the kiter are not. If this coincides precisely to the moment the kite delivers power to the rider and the rider pulls out of this "sinking" situation, then your notion of volume being useful would be valid. I would guess this to be a 1 in 100,000 chance of occurring as described. And in order for it to occur, rider speed must go to 0 for long enough to sink the board that far. In order to go to zero speed, the kite pull has to be ZERO for longer than 1 second. AND the riders momentum would also have to be given up quickly with intentional braking of the board via pitch or sideslip with weighted heels or toes. I am not saying this does not occur, as lulls, tacks, or out running the kite do happen frequently. But what I am saying is that any rider in at least any break I have been to, CAN AVOID your speed going to zero. Avoidance of "no speed" is crucial to "staying upright" in kiteboarding/kitesurfing. Those that achieve "zero speed" in kiteboarding, at least from my observations, find their next visual perspective is looking UP at the surface of the water.