What's your yearly kite budget?

[iriejohn]

I don't work any more but my wife does and her income is far higher than mine, and we're both happy tarts spending our money on what we want.

Her money on clothes, shoes, hand bags etc. and all the other mail order girlie deliveries that I sign for.

My money on kite gear if it's a) worn out or b) if there will be a significant performance gain.

The big difference between us is that whereas she's a collector for me less is more, so I sell or give away what I don't use.

[plummet]

I'm at the total neglect stage.

no kites purchasing this year or next year. my oldest kite is a 2012 reo with about 5 repairs on it.

[bkkite]

2016
- New slingshot 12 and 17m on sale a year old
- Slingshot misfit twin tip
2017
- Bought used Slingshot Rally 9m
- Bought North Nugget surf board

2018
- Sold Slingshot kites
- Bought used Core XR4s ( 9m, 12m, 15m)

2019
- sold slingshot twin tip ,
- bought Nobile NHP splitboard and Nobile infinity for travel
- Bought year old Slingshot hover glide on sale

2020
- Sold the North nugget surfboard
- bought Core Fusion twin tip

2021
- will think about replacing my 12m and 15m kites which get used the most and have quite a few patches and pinholes


I’d advise buying used till you know what gear you want. At this point I’m considering buying new on the idea that it may last longer if I take care of it. Pretty sure the used stuff I got had been through lessons... which took some of the life out of them

[Flyboy]

I've been kiting over 20 years & my tendency over that time has been to change my kites every 5 years. That seems to correspond to the amount of time before the kites start to show significant wear ... & also the amount of time before kite design shows a significant improvement. The kiting industry works hard to convince people that very new year brings dramatic new improvements in performance. This is clearly not the case.

I tend to buy used kites or last years or the year before kite model if I buy new. The custom SB I currently use (I haven't used a TT in years) I bought in 2010. Bought 3 other SBs in that time & each time sold them on & went back to the custom SB. All my expenditure in the last 2 years has been on foiling gear. Bought two foils which I sold on & am now happy with my (cheap) Gong foil & 3'6" Dwarfcraft. I don't anticipate "upgrading" any time soon. May invest in a couple of "foil specific" kites at some point. The investment in foiling is clearly the best money spent in terms of time on the water.

[Mossy 757]

All over the map but usually about 1 kite per year with about half again as much on other stuff. So with race foil kites, I'd say a normal year I'd spend $3-4k, not counting costs for travel to regattas or whatever.

With the Olympic equipment locked, I think this will be less of a hassle since companies won't have incentive for a while to put out new models, so it spaces out the performance gaps in the new gear a bit wider.

[vela99]

In my case it is 15 Euro per session amortization of gear.

[Mossy 757]

In my case it is 15 Euro per session amortization of gear.

Great mindset, really forces you to increase sessions if you want to speed that amortization!

Wife: "You're going kiting again?!?!"

Me: "I have to go 4 days this week otherwise I can't afford the daily cost of the new gear I already bought!"