Living fulltime in van with wet kiting gear

[slowboat]

Also consider a second pair of boots to alternate with while one dries.

[BWD]

maybe I am being stupid...but maybe clean the boots with fresh water after your session! The salt keeps water and by removing the salty water your boots will actually dry sooner. You can also build some sort of fan blowing into the boots helping to move the air...

a friend did this for booties/boots/wetsuits from a 12V PC cooling fan and pvc drainpipe, worked great.

[Kozzie]

Everything neoprene or metal gets flushed with fresh water. Forgot to add i also carting around diving gear so im onto that....

Lots of thoughts and ideas but is anyone here actually living full time in a vehicle with a heap of kite gear. All the kiteschools i know and have worked for just have a trailer full of wet gear and never cared cause it wasnt stored inside the van itself.


Rooftop lockbox may be safer on my vehicle due to it being unaccessible at 2.5m high so im hoping that would deter thieves... But im trying to avoid that solution due to having shit on roof that high throws the van in high winds when driving.

Wakeboarders just leave theyre gear at the cable park it seems when theyre fulltime van dwelling so didnt get any solutions from them.

Anyways solution still seems to be to build the board with boots its own shelf that isolates it from everything else

I was using rubbish bags over the boots themselves and hanging board upside down then next day bag would have a pool of water in them but heavey weighted carbon fiber becomes a fierce competitor for gillettes claim to be the closest shave a man can get, infact it would just cut your head off in event of a car crash so i never liked to drive with it setup like that too much.


I was looking at getting hyperlink systems that way just take boots off chuck em in bucket with wetty harness etc no dramas

But i ride pretty heavey... Infact i completely obliterated a very very expensive pair of boots just the other day that are ment to be most durable on the market (gummy strapers)

So aftet a fair bit of research i was told i would basicly just destroy the hyperlink system way to soon.

Screwing boots off and on isnt a solution due to corrosion and track system pressure on pressure off pressure on pressure off just delaminates the track/board

[nothing2seehere]

Don't use freshwater. Things will rot faster and smell worse quicker!

I use one of these :-

(or a cheaper variation) and a bunch of white plastic pipe to dry my boots. They fit into one of these perfectly:

https://www.screwfix.com/p/floplast-squ ... lack/91358

and then you build up with waste pipe to the right size (screw onto a wooden board) so that your boots fit onto the pipe whilst still attached to the board and the air is blasted/gently wafted through the boot. You should be able to design it so that the whole thing fits into your wet box in your van.

Outside in my shed in the winter, it takes 3-4 days to dry my boots. Indoors or in summer they will pretty much dry overnight. You may want to over-volt it to get it to push more air depending on the humidity of the area you are drying things in.

[Leon van Bergen]

I use this bootie hanger, rinse after use, let it drain for an hour and an evening above the heater, next day as new!

https://www.kitemana.nl/kitemana/bootie ... sqr=hanger&

[nothing2seehere]

I use this bootie hanger, rinse after use, let it drain for an hour and an evening above the heater, next day as new!

https://www.kitemana.nl/kitemana/bootie ... sqr=hanger&

I suspect that boots would fall off that hanger?

Plus he did say he didn't want to keep unscrewing and screwing them back onto the board at the end of each session.

[FLandOBX]

....All the kiteschools i know and have worked for just have a trailer full of wet gear and never cared cause it wasnt stored inside the van itself....

Maybe that's your answer? I'm not living in my van full time, but I picked up a solid used trailer for less than the cost of a new kite, and all of a sudden I've got all kinds of extra room in my vehicle.

[Kozzie]

Disappointed that the bootie hanger website didnt require a pop up ensuring i was over the age of 18 before viewing.

Internal box/houseing/shelf with a yacht cabin fan seems to be winning...

Now for my next trick

Theres plenty of waterproofing silicon sprays that i have used to apply waterproof coatings to softshell snowskiing jackets over the year....


Anyone ever waterproof theyre wakeboots? Ill be picking up a can sometime soon just to give it a whirl as i know theyre used for hiking boots etc.

Im hoping my new replacements from another manufacturer fair better then these did. Boots are bloody expensive these days. Ill be modifying the ktvs into casual sneakers to wear at kiteing events like the kook i am. I was hoping to buy a single boot as replacement but they understandibly didnt want a bar of it. So casual wear it is.



Not hating the old boots btw im probably one of the older fatter boot riders on the water and i rate the gummy straps... I probably would prefer they had been lighter especially when wet and dryed faster i didnt buy another pair due to aspirations to travel abroad and just to heavy for plane travel allowances.

Shame they blew up the other boot was in perfect condition bought new and only couple seasons of use. But whatever fingers crossed new ones last longer

[nothing2seehere]

Wow! I had assumed that was a pair of shredtowns when I first saw them.

The waterproofing sprays only last a short time and aren't supposed to be particularly good for marine environments. I have a goretex-like drysuit and a full reproofing spray seems to last approximately 40 minutes before it stops beading (tried 3 different brands). I wouldn't hold your hopes up.

I've heard good things about the gummy straps although I gather they can be a bit of a pain to undo in cold conditions when your hands are numb. I'm having a go with the Vadateks now. Like the shred towns they have a detachable boot. I don't have anything bad to say about them yet. I think a big win is how flat the board is with just the footbed on.

[Kozzie]

Yeah i seem to chew thru leashes like a rat aswell fat old amateur freestyle wannabes destroy gear hard cause we dont land shit and the beach beers make us numb and were old enough that noone loves us anymore so it doesnt matter how hard we get hit or least thats my theory on why i seem to break so much gear even tho pedantic at careing and storeing even drape a shade cloth over my gear if itll be on beach longer then 5 minutes

Anyways thought there would be more full time homeless kiters chaseing wind in here i might hit up the divers/kayakers? See if they have an internal drying bay solutions for van living