In Belgium and Holland Kona sales are very bad, I think that the problem is that :
1. people only windsurf with a lot of wind
2. they don’t like putting a board on the roof ot their car
3. they don’t like not planing
4. exocet doesn’t give enough margin to distributor which cannot give enough margin to shop : shop sells boards with more margin ? the board is the same for nearly 5 years now, it’s time to lower the price I think so sales can really start here ….
5. the “new” “kona” rigs are expensive and worthless : it is less expensive to buy a good boom + good np sail + 100% carbon mast to go freeriding.
I was told the first year Kona was rigged with np v6 rig, it’s a mistake to change that …

anyway, I like the board and hope the exocet company will do the right efforts soon !

I’m pretty comfortable in the harness: it’s the straps on the Kona I’m having trouble with. Compared to the shortboards I’ve sailed, they seem really far back, even in the furthest forward position. Solution 1: Cant the sail back, which I’m working on. Solution 2: get a new wide/shortboard, which I just did, this time with a daggerboard to address some of the shortcomings of my old Starboard Go.

Unfortunately with infant twin girls and a son living on a teacher’s salary, I’m not going to make any trips to Hatteras soon, but point taken. I have to sail in the conditions I have, which can be pretty marginal in the summer. That’s why I have the longboard in the first place, and an SUP board.

-Ian

All windsurfers should try very hard to get a hang of the footstraps and harness. It makes a big difference in all wind speeds, and once you’ve got the skill you’ve got it forever as long as you can commit to maintaining it through time on the water.

The harness will help with railing a raceboard, you’ll really feel upwind power in only 10 knots. You’ll also plane as early as possible on a reach, kick up the dagger, step into the front foot strap and be able to load the power into the fin.

Short board oriented companies have a design bias towards wide-open locations that supply steady wind pressure. Most boards under 65cm wide and fins smaller than 40 cm are not good for upwind planing in constricted waters or light gusty winds. Wide style boards like the GO and Formula class have been designed for this reason.

Any narrow board will outpoint such boards when not planing, daggerboard or not. It’s a width/waterline issue. The wider GO will in turn outpoint the narrow board when powered up and planing. A planing designed board is inherently lighter than a longboard and will let you plane upwind.

Modern planing windsurfing is partially a motorized sport, if your home conditions don’t offer planing-quality wind, it might be time to pack the car and find a spot that does.

All the harness/ footstrap skills learned on a longboard will make a transition to pure planing shapes much faster, and as you load the power directly into the larger fin, you might find a surprising amount of efficiency.

Bruce,
What a good set of posts. Why is it that no one in the industry recognizes the truth in your observations that most people will never end up using their footstraps or a harness? IMO the idea behind “Expedition Windsurfer”/SUP board featured above is really interesting.

Thanks for the feedback. Unfortunately, most of my Kona sailing has been in non-planing conditions. (The wind gods seem to enjoy taunting me with good winds whenever my wife requires my help with the twin girls.) You’re also right that I wasn’t completely in the straps while planing — that’s been the thing I’ve been working on. When our windsurfing season begins again, sometime around late March, I’ll be back at it.

Tor, I was having the opposite problem with the gasket. If I completely retracted the daggerboard then the gasket would keep it retracted, almost like two lips snapped shut. keeping the daggerboard slightly extended, even just a little, solved that problem.