You know him, you love him. He has probably been riding too much to post this himself. Damn bastard is living and working in the Turks and Caicos now. Take a look at this crystal clear warm butter, and you will know why SDC will probably never return to the mainland west coast. Check out his smooth stylings in “higher”.

im getting old, forty now and just cant cut the cold water of winter so-cal . not to mention all the kooks. So i have relocated/ retired to a club med somewhere in the turks and caicos islands. Todays session took place way too far offshore at the reef outside the resort just after taking a guest for a body drag through the swim zone.

” Im  almost completely naked now”, ” can we do it again”?” uh…. huh… sure.”.. i thought nipples were the icing on the cake ,but finding her digits tucked into my kite bag after this sesh is a just a bit too much.

I did my research before coming here, this is this islands only topless beach and figured that would make my lessons that much more bearable. Im on the clock on this video, working hard. im pretty sure we booked tomorrows lessons just because i pulled into that last little shorebreak on my skim.

“Im not so sure i really understand your schedule” my new boss says to me.

” im always working” 

Here is some retarded Wakeskate footage nicely shot by Elliot Leboe and featuring Dre, Stone, and Steen. If this doesn’t get you motivated then nothing will. No doubt this guys are pushing the envelope. You can also check out the forum post if you have questions or comments here:
Click to go the video forum topic
http://www.vimeo.com/7326487

Here is some nice skim footage shot in Baja posted by 57palm. Enjoy some smooth skim style.
Here is also a link to get to the forum topic for discussion:
Click to go the video forum topic

As I write this post I am gearing up for our first day of our season. This time of year is always my favorite. For me the Fall means football, the holidays, and most importantly, the beginning of our windy season. This past Summer was pretty horrible. I went several spans of 4 – 5 weeks with no kiting, which is very usual for South Florida. South FLA is definitely not known for its wind in the Summer, unless we get a nice little tropical depression or storm blowing off our coast. Generally, even in the worst of Summers you can usually count on at least a few decent days each month, but not this year. Needless to say it was a long, hot, windless, Summer. My wife was probably close to divorcing me this summer – I probably would have deserved it. No wind makes Lonny a bit of a turd, and then some… Fortunately, I had so many great members on LTS to keep the stoke going and get me through.

Back in August I wrote to Bob Smetts, owner and master shaper at Zap Skimboards and Phase5 about coming up with a design based exclusively for kite skimming. I have spent the last 5 years riding tons of different styles and shapes in skimboards, but I have never found a board as easy to ride, durable, or better for kite skimming than a Zap/Phase 5 Skim. Check his resume and you will know why… Bob quite simply has magic in his shaping and, and the guy knows how to build a kick ass board. Naturally, when I thought about building a design based on my hundreds of hours logged on the water kite skimming I went to “the Man” and talked to him about my vision for some boards for Todd and me this season. Well last week my vision arrived and I can tell you that I am drooling with anticipation to get on the water with this bad boy.

Hopefully I will get some good time on the water over the next few days and will give you all some feedback on how this new beast rides. However, I can tell you just looking at it I think it has the right stuff, and cannot wait to rip of some water with this puppy! Let’s just say the anticipation is high. Till then…

In the quest for finding a good board (read: a board that feels like a comfy pair of sneakers), here we go again, having a look at board shapes outside the box. I found this surfboard, which seems to be just the opposite of a standard shortboard, in all aspects. The shaper is a world renowned man, shaping for decades, and always following his own wits rather than fashion.

Just a few specs to give you an idea how different it is: the board has its widest part far back; quite a bit of rocker in the tip, but almost any in the tail; it has huge amounts of volume; and the bottom shape is convex, by a huge margin.

I’m talking about the “Nugget” by Geoff McCoy. He calls the convex bottom design “the loaded dome”. People surfing this board say it’s amazing, doing everything with ease. Unfortunately I didn’t find any kiter who is using it, so… I have to build one to find out   Have some wood lying around, no problem there.

For a while I’m wrapping my head around what Geoff McCoy has to say about (surf)boards. He’s a very critical mind and calls BS on many of the common shapes, not because they don’t work, but because they don’t work for the masses of surfers out there. He has a different mind set and thinks flow and ease, rather than aggressive maneuvers forced onto the wave.

I think he has good points. In some interview of his, I also found a hint how to systematically work out a kiteboard’s characteristics, regarding rail shape, volume, rocker and across-bottom shape, plus an approach how to design, calculate and place fins. This is something I was seeking for long. I’m currently wrapping my head around fluid dynamics to get things straight and in systematic order, which takes some time, so you’ll have to wait for that one.

Here’s a link to Geoff McCoy’s website with all kind of interesting information and good pictures of his boards.  www.mccoynugget.com

And, it would not be the board builder’s blog, a couple of screen shots of my wooden nugget in the works.

Good winds, tungsten

P.S. September+October is our no-wind-season. Plenty of time to work on new toys, and plenty of stoke looking forward to trying them

P.P.S. The nugget in the photo is a different size, that’s why it’s slimmer

A good board is like your favorite pair of shoes: it fits perfectly, it does what you want effortlessly, you don’t even notice it’s there. Think “carving” and it carves. (the board, not the shoes, that is).

The difficult part is, out of all the shapes and sizes, what is a good board FOR ME?

Now, if you believe the gossip, there is a real funny war going on  about the best surfboard shape, and it’s going on for decades. Funny, because the pro surfers these boards are made for are light years ahead of anything the average surfer Joe will ever be able to do with a board,  surfing conditions can’t be compared, but the boards hitting the shelves are still copies of those pro boards. Mhhhhhhm. Something to think about.

There are a couple of shapers out there going in the opposite direction. Interesting concepts, oriented at the ease of use for a normal rider on an average day, rather than at the highest possible performance in ideal conditions, with a 59kg rider trained like a ninja fighter in his best years.

I don’t want to belittle the common board shapes. They work well in most cases. But they represent the approach, knowledge and materials available 40 years ago, and for kiting, they have some downsides in their pure surfing oriented appearance. Even “kite specific” surf boards are usually little more than a beefed up surf board. They work, but they are far from “good boards”.

A good kite skim board has a slightly different rocker from an original skim, more volume to it, it’s a bit larger and a tad wider. Lonny’s Magic Measurements (TM) represent a good skim board, I feel with the skimmies we are way ahead of the kite surf boards. Get a LMM one, and you’ll know what I mean. Feels like a comfy pair of shoes.

Now those different concepts. Are they good for kiting? Some I tried, and yes they’re great, some I don’t know yet. I’ll build a board of each and we’ll see. But they are sure interesting as they approach “board” from a different angle. Let’s open our minds and have a look at some details.

Concept #1: The deep concave.

This is nothing like a (kite)surfboard which often has some concave to it, it’s rather like a slalom water ski. The Ocean Rodeo Mako uses this concept, and it works great: extremely fast, ridden with equal stance, bites like no other when carving, and it’s as loose as you want it if you get off the rail. Those boards have an elliptical outline (good for carving); they have a huge amount of rocker (2-3”, symmetrically front and back), and they have a constant rocker curvature from front to rear.  The concave is nothing like in other boards: 3/4 ” of concave in the middle of the board, and still 1/2” of concave in tip and tail. That is HUGE.

Those boards are sold strapped, but there are a some wise kiters out there who take off the ball-and-chain, wax them up and enjoy a very different ride. Carvey, frightening fast, but open for trickery when you shift the weight from the rail to a more upright position. Ocean Rodeo makes them in different sizes, 150×34, 140×40, 150×40, 165×50, you see the variety of possibilities here.

I’ve got one in the works which is going to be 150×40, full deck pad, wood & glass & epoxy. Here are some pics, taken from the free AKUshaper programme, to give you an idea. I’m really looking forward to get that baby out, I own the 150×34 Mako and boy, the wider one is very promising

EDIT: It’s done! Here is how you can build your own ride. Hope you enjoy!

cheers, Tungsten

Click here to see my forum post on how you can build your own ride!