Twintip evolution has had several trends until they have been formed into the ones we use today. The first twintip boards I recall make me smile as they looked like big bananas. They were thick, long, had a big rocker and looked like two noses of the directionals were glued together. It was common that these boards were 160 to 190 cm long. There were even longer boards as some of the school twintips were way over 2 meters long. Compared to modern boards, it was hard to get upwind and jump with those boards.
There were some so-called wakestyle boards that were similar to the modern boards but they required more skill to ride and they required almost overpowered conditions to get upwind. I had one of these after the first plastic 180 cm long twintip. It was Airush Wakestyle 137 2002. It was only 35 cm wide and had pickle fork tips. It was not quick to plane but it kept the edge when overpowered.
In the next step, the majority of the boards changed from big plastic twintips to follow the way the wakestyle boards were. The big twintips were still produced as beginner boards. There was a twintip sidestep of mutant boards that could be ridden both ways like twintips if wanted. However, one direction was preferred and the one tip of the board had bigger fins like directional boards. The latest mutant-like boards are Nobile Shinn Wave and Ocean Rodeo Mako but those shape is far from the Naish Mutant in 2002/2003.
Twintips got shorter. Many boards were 130-160 cm long and usually they were 35 to 41 cm wide. Naish Stubbie 2003 had the shortest length of all production boards with only 115 cm of length. The boards did not have much flex and in chop they were harder to ride than current boards. The missing flexibility was replaced by the small size.
Many kiters made boards by themselves for lighter winds. It was easy to make a reasonable board (compared to the productin boards at that time) from plywood by taking a sidecut from some successful production board and adding some width. The simplest boards had plywood core bent to wanted rocker and boat varnish on top. Some kiters added layers of fiberglass or even carbonfiber on top of the plywood core to make it a little stiffer and to keep the wanted rocker better.
During the next few years the board shapes were tuned but no major changes were made to the length of the boards. As the change was more subtle, only some centimeters were added to the smallest boards and the lenght of the longest boards was reduced a little. The change was more in the board width. The boards were getting a little more flexible and the bottom was shaped more. This made it possible to make a little wider board that could be still ridden in high winds also by lighter kiters. Refining the board shapes and usability took some years. This evolution created boards like Nobile 666 2008 that is some kind of a legend here at the local beaches. It was mainly a flat water freestyle board but due to its unmatched ability to plane in light wind and keep the edge and pop, people ignored the fact that it was not a good board in choppy water.
The sport itself evolved and this created a need for different types of boards. People had always ridden freeride or waves but now kiteboarding companies started to release more beginner, intermediate, freeride and freestyle boards. A requirement for a lightwind board was also emerging. Kiters wanted to go out there in lighter winds when the range of kites was getting better in low winds and most of us do not live in the area where it is over 20 knots of wind daily.
New construction methods are introduced to make lighter weight boards with much more refined flex patterns in the boards. Another change is that there is more shape on the bottom of the board. One example of new construction is North Select, which has been made light and has that magic feel when you ride it. One example of the new shape is the new SuperShinn by Shinn kiteboarding.
Specific wakestyle boards are making a strong comeback. There is a requirement for these boards from the people who want to ride with bindings. Kickers and sliders are built and people are visiting cable parks. Hadlow Wakestyle board and North Gambler are answering the call in addition to the boards we have had from Liquid Force and some other companies. It is good to see this kind of a new breed emerging. May the evolution continue.
nice post,keep writing!!
VastaaPoista