Best board for king of the air

[Bigdog]

What is the state of the art on twintips for the best jumpers? Maybe it doesn't mater at all about the shape or flex or rails or rocker...ya right....

Discuss....

[edt]

board dont matter it's all about technique and the kite. On flat yeah it matters a lot because you want a fast board that has good pop but they have great rockers for king of the air so the timing on launching from the wave is what gives you a nice launch.

[Frank82]

You want a board with some decent rocker to avoid cartwheel crashes like Youri did.

[plummet]

The board does matter.

So the conditions are cross shore with kickers 30+ knots (hopefully)

You want a board that can hold heaps of power.
So make it smaller thinner than standard. Maybe 130 x 39 wide.
You want to hold a much rail as you can into the kicker. So rectangular tips.
You want to soften your impact on landing so heaps of rocker.
But you want the board to accelerate fast and get back upwind so add a big concave to give as flat waterline as possible.

Actually you may need a little more length to be more stable at speed in your run up to the ramp so maybe 135-138.
Channels in the board and big fins.

[edt]

i remain unconvinced. cartwheel crashes is not about the rocker on the board but catching some voodoo wave at landing. also at the pro level you can pretty much hold down as much power as you like with any board you have, 120 or 160 they will are not going to get thrown off their edge. In other conditions, like for instance in butter or chop the board is important but not these nice perfect kickers they get in south africa. Just my opinion.

[Frank82]

Rocker sure helps a lot when a weird wave pops up. My high rockered board has saved me from cartwheel crashes before when my landing wans't perfect after a kiteloop. Other than that channels for grip on landing, stiff for maximum pop and for size whatever you ride normally.

[SENDIT!]

Yep, like a Mako!

[plummet]

i remain unconvinced. cartwheel crashes is not about the rocker on the board but catching some voodoo wave at landing. also at the pro level you can pretty much hold down as much power as you like with any board you have, 120 or 160 they will are not going to get thrown off their edge. In other conditions, like for instance in butter or chop the board is important but not these nice perfect kickers they get in south africa. Just my opinion.

Well I get similar conditions on occasions . Perfect cross shore, swell period and ramps cranken wind. I can tell you the board does matter. A board that can hold more power and load up more will take you higher.

I have 2 boards. Both 145x45. But different shape rocker and set up. One board, the light wind one is useless for boosting high. It looses and edge way to soon. My mutant board can hold way more power and as a result I can go a lot higher on that board...... unless it's really light wind then the light wind board wins as it can go faster which =more power in the kite.

[Bigdog]

Plummet what is your definition of heaps of rocker? What do you think constant curve, or gullwing is better?

[Peter_Frank]

I am with edt here, I also say it is not about the board - as long as it is just reasonably into the size/type everybody uses and not extreme, they work the best - it is fully up to the rider (and IMO not so much the kite).

They can hold loads of edge at speed, and having more rocker they will go slower thus not as high, and having too little it will be difficult to control.
Nothing new there

Regarding cartwheeling, aw c'mon, the riders at KOTA are amazing riders and not an issue eventhough it can happen if the waves closes early, but so what - there is always another ramp and you just ditch the wave and take the next one

The riders are the stars here, does not have anything to do with the board nor the kite IMO

Peter