longwhitecloud wrote: ↑Mon Oct 29, 2018 8:58 am
if you want a strong board, dont buy a light board
i love light boards, they do snap though$, heavy boards do not work for strapless airs
naish seem to take the route of heavy boards, minimal returns, i can see the reason ... pita
snapping twintip, surfboards, kitesurfboards, skateboards.. is just part of life. $800 is a fair wack tho... id buy a local clone if i lived in brazil 1/3 of the price?
keep procuding light boards.. heavy ones suck
Ohhh this absolutely not true. There's well done carbon boards super light and strong as hell. Light weight can't be a escuse for making crap.
I give you two examples of excellent light weight board construction:
Ultraresistent light weight wave board made with carbon alutex:
Hydro -
http://www.hydro.it
A mix of carbon, Kevlar and fiberglass:
Aero -
http://aeroboards.com
I heard that the guy from Aero its the same that was producing Skywalker boards in the past.
These boards weight less than 3kg. It isn't big brands as fone, North etc. Apparently the big brands has problems to absorb new expensive technologies for their China industrial scale factories.
About the brazilian boards costing 1/3 of the value... It's pretty much the opposite of what you saying. For me kite industry is copying the boards here (yes I'm from Brazil). Especially the boards made in Fortaleza from Flora and now nice ones epoxy made from GB. We have some examples of it. RRD is trying to do the same combination epoxy with strips of carbon. Eleveight also. This combination it's simple and efficient. Not heavy, good flex. Not bombproof as hydro but there's no issues like fone.
In my quiver I have 2 rrd máquina, 2 naish, 2 Flora, 1 dhd and 1 GB and I have been trying all the other brands. Watching the progress year by year. Some of my boards kind of destroyed by the time, some still good. So I know moreless what I'm talking about. Nowadays GB it's the most cost effective board in Brazil. His epoxy construction susprised me for the quality and resistance, costing €300. Plus you can customize the board as you want. I just made mine 5'7 X 17 3/4 X 2 squash tail.
If you're seriously rider or looking for that extra performance on the waves you should go custom, always. I will forever insist that kite brands should do custom boards. And they will, you can be sure about that. If the big surfboard brands can do it, they also can.