Hello fellow kiters.
I've been thinking of kite surfing with a longboard I have lying about (9'2" long single fin mal), but never dared or left the idea at the back of my mind. I don't have a SUP so cannot compare, but would love to know if any of you have done a longboard / kite session and how did you go with transitions and just general up wind? Any tips please?
Thanks

works fine draggy but not too much. fun, finless is fun too.....

how the dude from f one thought that a kitespecific sup kite for kiting on a sup was a good idea no one will ever know :-0

I learned to kite in 1999 on a 9' longboard and a 4m buggy foil. It worked fine. Long boards don't turn too well. Buggy foils don't relaunch but it was easy to paddle back to the beach, pour out the water and sand and head off again.

Ive tried kiting with my 7'6" mini-mal. As mentioned it works reasonably enough but turning sucks.

Ive also kited with a sit on top kayak. Picks up epic speed but damn near impossible to turn. I think if you had one with a rudder it would work.

And Ive also tried a pool li-lo. That was.....interesting.

This guy makes it look fun and has it wired...

if is a point break and side shore wind direction you can use a small kite. a long board is slow to turn. i only use a long board when light wind a sup is to hard to edge a going upwind is to hard cheers

You can do a flare gybe on a longboard. They're fun and easy to do but you're not planing when it happens. You're just pivoting on the tail. It's ok for getting around but there's none of the carving joy we expect from kiteboarding.

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colin71 said..
This guy makes it look fun and has it wired...

looks like fun and I have thought a few times to remove fins and practice gybes etc although it seems he had to walk back upwind

Also kiting a bodyboard is fun too but haven't tried in the waves only in the flat and rode it like a twin tip without fins and don't bother trying to turn it cause it don't also kiting a surf ski is also fun you can pretty much kite anything and everything if you know what your doing with the kite

Years ago a door washed up at our local. Provided hours of entertainment. Not hard to ride but doesn't turn too well.

I just took off all my fins and footpads/straps from an old 165 Cabrinha Force TT board and wow! Just wow! I am loving the freedom. I'll have to make a video of it. After I saw that video (thank you!), I've decided nah... surfers can have their boards. I am sticking to smaller profile boards that allow faster turns and easier transitions. A mal is a monster anyway

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upsidedowner said..
Also kiting a bodyboard is fun too but haven't tried in the waves only in the flat and rode it like a twin tip without fins and don't bother trying to turn it cause it don't also kiting a surf ski is also fun you can pretty much kite anything and everything if you know what your doing with the kite

oh man, why didn't I think of trying this when I had my ski. those things are so fast, would have been epic...

You can kite on pretty much anything that is reasonably flat and halfway floaty. Been kiting on a 9'3" mailbu since about 2003 and it works great. A bigger board in light winds has much more impact than a bigger kite. Probably the most important thing to make it work well is to remove the big long centre fin and replace it with a fin that's about 5-6" long. Otherwise the drag will wreck the whole experience. The smaller fin reduces the drag significantly. You can keep the small side fins in as they give you more bite when you need to really edge hard. If you have the legs and and the balls you can kite it in pretty strong wind. I used to kite this 9'3" malibu below on my old 16m North Rhino 2 in up to 22 knots. It will sometimes feel like your legs are going to explode but it's do-able. On a day when it's sub 10 knots you can be rocking upwind while everyone else is on the beach waiting for the wind to happen. A snack to learn as well. 5 minutes practice and you'll be rocking it. It's even quite easy to do heel to toe carving transitions with a bit of practice. First pic shows the set up with the smaller centre fin. Bottom two shots are my mate Chris on another 9'3" malibu. Chris was the one who first tried the whole idea of mal kiting back in 2002 or so.















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You are a legend Robbo! Thanks for those pics... and ideas.

please dont sit on your surfboards kids

I tried it on my 8"6" Mal and it was really good fun using a 12m in about 12 Kts. Here is a example.

And don't think you have to kite on a surfboard. There are loads of other things that you can have fun with...

I love the fact that almost anything go's im gonna try a directional board this summer. I was gonna cut down an windsurfing board ( not my new one the wife would kill me ) has anyone tried this? what size would you cut it down too? its 105Ltr and im 65-70 KG's was gonna use my 10M Evo?

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raggy said..
I love the fact that almost anything go's im gonna try a directional board this summer. I was gonna cut down an windsurfing board ( not my new one the wife would kill me ) has anyone tried this? what size would you cut it down too? its 105Ltr and im 65-70 KG's was gonna use my 10M Evo?

Windsurfing boards are hard to kite on for the same reason as a SUP (or an inflatable air mattress for that matter) -- it's nearly impossible to edge on them, so you can plane but you just end up going downwind because you can't edge to cut back upwind.

Try a standard skimboard. LOADS of fun and because the edge is so sharp you can ROCK upwind, even on a tiny one.