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Two important types of people in the windsurfing world are "team riders" and "gear reps."
Team riders are highly skilled professional windsurfers who travel around to competitions, video and photo shoots, etc. Their "team" is the windsurfing equipment manufacturer that sponsors them with free gear, stipends, etc.
Example of a team rider, Venezuelan Jose "Gollito" Estredo, for Fanatic Boards and North Sails.
Gear representatives (reps) are usually amateur aficionados who get discounts from the windsurfing gear manufacturer they represent, in exchange for helping show-and-tell and sell the gear.
Example of a gear rep, John Ingebritsen for Exocet Boards and Aerotech Sails.
Among the average Joes and Janes of windsurfing, there's a slight suspicion of gear reps. We figure the reps are likely to present a positively biased view of the gear they represent, and a negatively biased view of other manufacturers' gear.
One of the more recognizable reps in US windsurfing scene (i.e. in the iwindsurf.com forums) is John Ingebritsen (pictured above) from Florida. Ingebritsen reps for Exocet boards (based in France and run by Patrice Belbeoch) and Aerotech sails (based in Daytona Beach, Florida and run by Steve Gottlieb). John is outspoken and opinionated about windsurfing gear and styles, but his biases don't always fall in line with Exocet and Aerotech's offerings. He loves some of their stuff, but complains about their other stuff no less harshly than he would a competitor's gear. Likewise, if there's something from another brand that he likes, he won't shoot it down. While I don't always have the same gear preferences as John, I definitely trust him to say what he really thinks.
One thing he says is that the Exocet Kona 11'5 carbon was the best light-wind waveboard ever- fast in both planing and non-planing mode, light and stiff, able to catch small mushy waves but also able to shred big heavy waves, etc.
Ingebritsen doing a backside aerial on the 11'5 carbon.
Ingebritsen wasn't as excited about the successor to the 11'5; Exocet's 10'2 WindSUP, which he says was too SUP oriented to work well for wavesailing in light, onshore winds. (Although some other riders seem to really like the feel of the 10'2; particularly those who sail in stronger sideshore or side-off winds.)
Anyway, Ingebritsen recently begged Exocet to make some more Kona 11'5 carbon editions. They said they'll do it, but only if they get 15 orders. Ingebritsen himself has ordered 3 (a "lifetime supply," he says), so that leaves 12 more. I'm not going to get once since I have a new minivan and college loans to pay off, and I already have two step-tailed longboard waveboards that work fine. But you should think about it. There's a discussion thread on the board on iwindsurf: http://www.iwindsurf.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=28509 To put your name on the order list, contact Steve Gottlieb, sailaero@aol.com.
3 comments:
Question for you. How did you fix the foam to the board. With resin? Next, did you just build up the fiberglass over the board's gelcoat when you wanted to build it up?
Lastly, how did you get the leading edge of the modification to smoothly finish out on the board, and stay attached?
JSW- You're talking about my modified Angulo paddleboard, right? I used regular West Marine resin to stick the foam to the board. I sanded on the board's skin a little first to make a rougher surface for the new foam to stick to. If I was doing it again I would probably cut away the board's original bottom surface and just glue foam to foam. That would also make it easier to get the leading edge right. Getting that flush (and not concave) was one of the hardest parts and I think it came out slightly imperfect. It's basically an increasingly thin layer of foam covered in glass, then the last 2 or 3 inches is just glass of decreasing thickness.
it must be quite windy
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