I'm pretty sure none of the riders in the press release were riding a course race board that would heavily rely on expensive custom fins. There was a split between fast directional boards and twin tips. Kent and Damo both used stock mix and match Futures surfing fins. I have seen a good stock quad set goes as cheap as $30 and as much as $100. That's cheap when you consider the average cost of one twintip fin is $15-20. A current model year twintip deck costs at least $400 even for the cheapest models.
It's true that course racing fins are expensive, but those are mostly custom and range from 26cm to 40cm each (x 3 or 4 for each board). Figure $175/each plus you have to pot them yourself and cut them down to the correct length that works in the board.
Plenty of kites do not "rock"...
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Todd Gréaux
Cabrinha Kites
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