Boards for Kiteboarding

Video Transcript

"In this clip, we're going to go over all the different styles of boards you can use for kite surfing. Kite surfing again is one of the most versatile sports in the entire water sports industry. You can take aspects from many different sports like windsurfing, wakeboarding, or even just surfing. And basically apply them directly to kite surfing. You're just going to do the same thing that you would with that board in the other sport but now you're going to be getting pulled by a kite rather than the other object. The different genres of kiteboarding for instance are free ride, kite surfing, where you're actually using like a surfboard. Here is something strapless. Or you know you could do wake style riding, where you're trying do to high technical maneuvers that are basically, you know, the same as you would do in wakeboarding but you're doing with a kite. There's a bunch of different options that you can use here. We can use sandal strap bindings like this, which is really good for kite surfing because in the event that you get what we call, teabagged, which is where the kite actually picks you up and dunks you, these sandal strap bindings allow you to really eject from the board fast to protect your knees. Because you don't want to be getting dragged through the water with, you know, some wakeboarding style binding attached to your leg and causing your knees to blow out. So, different styles of board. Everything is personal preference. Don't let somebody tell you, you know, what you should be using. Decide for yourself. Boards like this right here, for instance, have a lot of flex to it. You know, you can see it right there in this board. It's going to be a really soft ride. It's got small fins and it's good for general all around free style or just going out to free ride, get big air, ride back and forth. Then you have light wind specific boards. Or, if you're a bigger guy, you need a little bigger board, there's going to be more displacement with a board like this. You can see the general surface area, especially the width. It's a lot larger. So, you know, if you're a bigger guy, the wind is light or you're just trying to get up for your first time, a board like this is going to really help you out. Each board has different features to it. You know, for instance, this board right here, it's tough to see, but it's a double concave board. So, technically speaking when you land or you try to ride upwind, it's going to allow you do to so in a much more efficient pattern. Little features like that are what are going to get you a different more fine-tuned ride. It's really all about what you're looking for though. Again, I will emphasize personal preference. A board like this is a really cool board to play with. This is by a company called Nobile and it's a skim board. It's a kite specific skim board though. You can see how we have the fins here. It allows you to go upwind just like a madman. Boards like this, the twin tip board, they're very good to go upwind and certain ones do it better than others. But, you know, a bigger board like this, with their real wide surface area, is going to just shoot you right upwind. Plus, in light wind, you'll be having fun all day on this thing. On this right here, it's called a Placebo surf skate. I mean I can do, you know, everything from a kick flip to getting big air with this. It is light as a feather. I mean, I'm holding it with kind of one hand here and, you know, it's not even an issue for me. Normally, it's got three fins, I actually just broke one off because, you know, if you have a board like this you really don't want to take it into the shallows. I actually hit a sandbar the other day and snapped it right off. But, this board right here absolutely flies upwind. So, if you're doing a sport like racing or something, it's definitely the better one to have. So that's basically the general overview. Everything's personal preference. So decide for yourself, check it out and ride it."