Nice race, you gotta hand it to the moth guy with the foil, they are supposed to be pretty hard to handle.
I've got to say that was surprising, anyone know what sort of board setup that was on the kite? Looks like it must run some sort of windsurfer style fin setup as he wasn't railing it that hard to get that height?
It would be interesting to see them race against a catamaran like an A class or Tornado, as they would both slaughter a 49er. End of the day though kites are pretty young, with development who know what is possible.
The kiteboard is one of the Alex Aguera race boards. His boards have been dominating course racing this year. They have 3 or 4 big fins. See www.alexaguara.com for all the details you'd want.
If you owned the America's Cup winning trimaran, would you want to go up against a USD $1100 kiteboard?
"Kites get slaughtered by windsurfers on race gear in the ocean, or even in chop.
Absolutely slaughtered."
What complete rubbish - a race board for a kite is basically a windsurfer board and a kite is not stuck in one place. Maybe a racing windsurfer against a guy boosting waves but not a racing kiteboard.
So if poleys are faster in the ocean, why exactly?
Maybe because the power source is more in front of the rider, which gives some lift at the nose of the board hence making it easier to smoke over chop..
Just a guess from a non-poley.
I've seen latest reports , that the kite race boards are now quicker around a course the a formula windsurfer( this is only fairly recent ,maybe last 6-12 months)..the kite boards are recording up to 18 kts upwind in board speed and 30-35 kts downwind ( on gps) .The kite guys are also trying to asshole the windsurfers out of the 2016 Olympics..[}:)]