bigcane wrote: ↑Tue Nov 06, 2018 9:23 pm
Coaching, travel, lost income from not working, etc - these are the main costs of competing at a high level in any sport. The foiling equipment annual cost is modest by comparison especially since designs are stabilizing and gear is holding its value. Does the value of a used Mike’s even go down?
Agree, you need some serious cash to travel the world to international events. The benefit of kiting is you don't have to pay to ship a boat around the world.
The gear race has slowed down. Mikes lab has been the best hydrofoil for years. Is the new version (bullet 4) any better than the last version (bullet 3)? I know people are still buying bullet 3 because bullet 4 isn't IKA registered equipment yet. For the kites, the R1V2 was released over two years ago and is still winning international events.
$16k is the price for new stuff, but if you are going to the olympics, you're going to get sponsored and get all your gear for free!
If you want to start competing, you can be extremely competitive on $5k worth of gear. Get some lightly used R1V2 11m and 15m ($3k), a used board ($450), and a used Banga ($1800, Moses comets are only $1200), and you'd be very competitive in almost any fleet from 10 knots - 24 knots of wind (most races).