FKA Kiteboarding Forums - New Water Gear For 2016 & Beyond

Let's take a look at some of the new water gear brought to market.

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I just went up on Saturday for the last day of the show and so had to cram a fair amount into the day. This article presents a small sampling of Surf Expo. Apologies for those booths I might have missed.

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Erika Lima was doing some amazing SUP yoga when I walked by the SUP demo pool. So, I took a lot of shots and will be sharing them throughout this writeup. She is a Brand Ambassador with Rogue SUP, http://www.roguesup.com and a SUP Yoga Instructor at SUP Fusion, https://supfusion.com .

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Sticking with tradition there are also a lot of runway shots of water fashions in this article.

Let's start with a look at Axis Kiteboarding from New Zealand. http://www.axiskiteboarding.com

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Adrian and Gebi with Axis boards give a tour of the great new products. Here the guys are showing off their new foil board.

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Downward (water) Dog and looking mighty fine.

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Swinging by the Slingshot,http://www.slingshotsports.com , booth to see what Neil and crew are up to.

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Offering the full line up of action water gear.

You can see videos about much of Slingshots gear lineup for 2016 at:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...A8FC55B950679A

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Lots of twin tip boards to choose from.

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Fun wakesurfers too

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Not only is this incredibly hard to do, I understand it can improve TV reception?

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Lightwave Dave of Lightwave Kiteboards, http://www.litewavedesigns.com , shows off his latest board shapes for 2016.

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Communicating in the isles with Pete and Ryan

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Impressive poise, strength and balance on an unstable, moving platform.

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The lady on the right runs this model troop and has done for sometime. She has the best runway walk that I think I have seen.

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Let's see what is going on from some of the Pryde Group Americas brands.

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I was fortunate to be able to attend the PGA Dealer Meeting on Grand Bahama this summer and got a closeup look at the product offerings for 2016. You can see some of the boards in the lineup here.

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Group shot in front of a massive inflatable SUP board for a couple dozen or so?

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Another group shot, this time from the Lucayan Grand in Port Lucaya in the Bahamas.

You can see write-ups on Cabrinha kite gear at the following links:

2016 PGA Bahamian Product Presentation I - Great Water Gear, Rum & Bush Crack
http://fksa.org/showthread.php?t=12348

2016 PGA Product Presentation II - Double Agent Hydrofoil!
http://fksa.org/showthread.php?t=12350

2016 PGA Product Presentation III - Kiteboards
http://fksa.org/showthread.php?p=51763#post51763

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZKnYmvzUTQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxFT99hSaC8

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Evan shows off some of the features of NP's latest harnesses.

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Three remarkable spreader bars for the new season.

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I had some remarkable hands on experience with two of the JP-Australia inflatable SUPs in Italy. The portability and stability allowed us to take the kids on explorations along the coast to caves and roman ruins outside Sorrento.

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Gary, Kent and Sergio of PGA

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Wrapping the inflatables up around a core can improve longevity and these guys were just standing around so they filled in. We'll take you out the next calm day, promise!

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Todd of Cabrinha tools along on this high tech Flinstone's gadget

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Erika making something really difficult look easy and beautiful at the same time.

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GoPro is present in force as always, lots of great camera gear to bring the action home from almost anywhere.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chJ0...ature=youtu.be
Here is an video going over the new program.

https://scontent-mia1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...94&oe=56C2C537
GoPro has come out with an incredible Awards program where photographers potentially get cold cash and glory for the content they post up to the tune of $5,000,000.00 USD per year.

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GoPro has also introduced the compact, self-contained waterproof "Session" camera.

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More at:http://shop.gopro.com/hero4/hero4-se...CHDHS-101.html

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Hyperflex bringing superior wetsuits to whatever watersport you might choose to pursue.

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Heading out for some colorful free diving with my NeoSport Wetsuit a related brand to Hyperflex.

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Free diving down to checkout a large goliath grouper in my Hyperflex 5 mm suit.

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Checking out a wreck. When you are free diving the last thing you need for efficient breathed drops is to be cold. This Hyperflex suit takes care of that very well and in comfort.

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Matt Aiken, former advertising director for SBC Kiteboard magazine bringing innovative new products to market to improve your riding experience through WMFG Manufacturing, http://wmfg.co . He has these pumps designed with ergonomics and function in mind for kiteboarders and inflatable SUP'ers.

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Matt gave me one to try. I the pump fast and easy to use with some good ergonomic considerations in how it is setup.

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Matt has adaptors for about any kiteboarding kite you might think of on here.

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He also has these nice deck traction pad segments that can be assembled in various configurations.

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Ed with Fanatic SUP, http://www.fanatic.com/sup/ ,is bringing lots of great new boards to market this year.

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Ocean Rodeo for the new year.

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An inflatable windsurfing sail using kite technology? What will they think of next? Apparently this concept comes from North. They may be working on an inflatable variant which attaches to a paddle. I had trouble finding something in English about this product but came across the following in German.

"Admit it looks a bit awkward as the windsurfer fiddling with the new rig. North Kiteboarding, one of the biggest surfing brands in the world, has entered with an inflatable Rig uncharted territory. With the first "inflatable" sailing on the market, the manufacturer wants to fill a gap. Especially newcomers have on the water known as their difficulty with a quite heavy windsurf kit and can do so keep only partially under control. And even professionals know that a rig is not really portable."
http://www.funsport.de/magazin/new-d...-rig-der-welt/

I did find and video and in English however!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB-xXiXhM1M

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Here is the Go-Scope team, http://go-scope.com, with a lot of exciting new products for GoPro and other action cameras.

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They put out a lot of products at some excellent price points. You can see an overview in the video below:

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=EIYGztmjVdw

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This is the first one of these that I have seen. It is an underwater housing which increases the service depth of a GoPro Session camera from 35 ft. to 180 ft. of water.

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I really like this monopod. They have this great built-in track allowing two cameras to be mounted in a low profile configuration. I like to shoot fore and aft when I go through caves and wrecks while diving. This setup makes it even easier with lower drag.

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I am shown here using the Boost Plus monopod.

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Checking out what may be a concrete WWII practice bomb using the Go-Scope.com monopod. I am also wearing a great wetsuit from NeoSport.

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Slack-liners unite!

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Mystic, http://www.mysticboarding.com/ , for 2016.

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Billy Blackman and his lady tour the show.

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John Bryja brings a new kiteboarding magazine to the community!

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Mike Hirooka up from Miami and https://www.facebook.com/Hirooka-Sur...3401252691280/, checking out the show with his lady.

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North Kiteboarding, http://www.northkiteboarding.com

North has this interesting video on their site

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_c...&v=nyBPo7zTEEE

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Dave Troup with XENSR brings in some hot tech from the the northlands.

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Dave and his new digital baby, the XENSRAir, http://www.xensr.com/

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A closer look at the XENSRAir and mount.

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Aside from providing tons of info about your sessions, this might be the end of lost boards?

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Sharkbanz, http://www.sharkbanz.com, a passive device advertised to repel some sharks through the use of rare earth magnets to interfere with the animals lateral line performance.

I saw this product shortly after it came out. The video showed one shark making a pass and that was it. I moved on. About a year later I saw the "Bernie" video and thought, well there is a lot of repeated performance in this clip. So, I bought one to put on and forget about. I kite around sharks and prime feeding activity not uncommonly. They will usually leave you alone but not always. Plus once you go into the water your risk of a negative encounter goes up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRIsEl4hAl8

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We still didn't have any wind at this point so I took it out diving. Putting the shark band on the end of another product reviewed in this writeup, a Boost Plus camera monopod from Go-Scope.com. I swam around for quite a while, found a single nurse shark who seemed to be totally unaware I was almost ironing its lateral line with this gadget. Speaking further with the Sharkbanz folks, it was indicated that they never had much luck with often sessile nurse sharks either unlike some free swimming sharks people usually worry more about.

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The wind finally came back to South Florida, I am still riding around dusk, inlets with some sharks, so I figured why not? If my foot gets bitten, like a surfer riding 4 miles to the north of me yesterday, then I will know it doesn't work on yet another species. The bluefish migration may have been a bit thicker up that way? Hard won knowledge but in the meantime we'll see.

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I use PolarPro filters, https://www.polarprofilters.com/ , on my GoPros when there is enough light. They can a marvelous job in restoring some color to the images.

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A still shot captured from video on the wreck of the Castor during the goliath grouper aggregation there last year. The Polar Pro red filter really brought some color back considering it was overcast at the bottom was at 110 ft. of water.

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A nice com link from http://www.bbtalkin.com/ for kiting, kayaking, whatever.

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Let's close out with Dre and Derrik of Tona kiteboards. More about the line and the Tona Life at http://tonalife.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0phpBz5zv20

Dre showed me a video clip he put together down on Antigua. It is a very well shot and edited clip including drone imagery and an excellent sound track. Jump on board and checkout the islands, no passport needed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2iVJmNhyNI

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See you Erika, keep up the great work!

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