In the end no one questions the develpoment of gear and design its more the annual push - and whether its about true innovation or market share.
What we ride for 2011 is just the R&D teams 2009 gear, there already probably riding 2012/13's.
Be nice if they bought out a freewave twinnie / quad option with decent size real world fins that has all the benefits of flatter rocker and early planing with a higher level manouverability from the twins.
Who I have sailed with? Give me a break. Now you want me to drop names? No difference between gear pro's use compared to everyone else unless your just learning then you choice same rig but then just go bigger size board. Was that your only question?, too long to read the lot!
Quote Scotty Mac, 'No difference between gear pro's use compared to everyone else.'
Thank you for clearing that one up. I mistakenly thought they used custom boards painted to look like ordinary production ones. Has that practice now ceased?
Scotty Mac you must be awesome. I guess the only pro i've sailed with is steve & 2 things stuck out immediately- how quick he could get going & how small the gear he could use was compared to anyone else.
^^^ I have the 92 twinnie and it has none of the above tendencies unless its well powered at 20+ knts then its great - the only diffrence is the front fins and at 86-90 kg's it is definately not a light wind board but handles 4.2 conditions well
I must say something like the OES 105 quad sounds like a good option for our conditions
but not as badly. 
Scottymac, I wasn't wanting you to drop names but I was wondering whether you'd ever seen the top guys at work.
The point was when I've sailed against pros they were normally so much better that it didn't seem that I needed the same gear as they did. They sailed differently and therefore the gear they needed could easily be different.
And I'm not a beginner.
To save having to update gear every year just buy one of these;
you can wave sail do slalom and freestyle best of all the design will never change....oh yeah did i mention SUP as well?
We used to have strict rules in Production Motor Cycle racing, but that didn't stop the factories from pulling fast ones. Malcolm Uphill lapped the T.T. course at over 100 m.p.h. on a supposedly production factory Triumph Bonneville with No.3 (I think) factory tuning kit, as available to ordinary customers.
Somebody managed to snap a photo of it with the fairing removed showing a radically steeper induction tract and cut aways in the tank to accomodate the carbs.
I bought a Bic Saxo 270 in the late 90's after seeing an advert with Robert Tehritahou (don't remember the correct spelling) double looping one. (It was the colour I liked really!)
I'm sure he was more than capable of double looping a barn door, since he was quite crazy, but since he used the same looking board in wave comps at the time, it surely couldn,t have been standard.
Despite what's said today, how can we be sure that boards used in competition are bog standard, and not specially constructed? (They're never sawn in half to check their insides, are they!)
MrGob yep I think they can, there is no need though as you can just cut a small amount out. Even then there is no need, through careful measurement you cant really hide anything... say more or less materials will soon be picked up.
Pretty much the only thing they have no control over is fins and booms.
Do the pros consider my expanding beer gut ,authritis ,gout and piles that im developing whist on this computer ,.........Ones flexability and countless war injuries from slaying dragon tails ?????
Just make it easyer please on my aging body to gouge hissing fire breathing dragons apart
comfortable footstraps , lighter but stronger gear.
and watch the cost 
The worst gear is new gear you have not used and abused 
Mind you there is a point where your equipment ,suffers the repeated beating and roth of the dragon tail and thus gets bent, stretched,and blowen out.
It is at this point the wallet has to get a beating.
As for the latest and greates .............its not always 2 steps forward and one back or is it two back and one forward.
Gotta live for the love and passion , associated with rtrying somthing new to slaye dragons creating a different style and feel.
not talking kiting either
Ah! 'Stronger and lighter' King of the Point!
Sorry sir, it aint possible. You can have stronger and heavier, or weaker and lighter, but not both at once until some new miraculous material is invented.
You are the expert on sails Mr Severne, so we agree, but how would you apply the argument to boards? (King of the Point did specifically say to keep the cost down!)
I read his request for stronger to mean longer lasting and more durable, not stiffer and more rigid.
If you take a current production board and wish to change its durability, you can surely only do one of two things? Beef it up with extra material (durable but heavier), or lighten it by removing some material (lighter but less durable).
It may be argued that it can be lightened and STIFFENED by substituting more carbon for some of the heavier material, but would that increase its long term durability?
Mountain bikes currently face a similar dilemma. Some makes have substituted carbon for alloy in critical high stress areas, and there has been a much increased epidemic of snapping failures. Durability not!
The new millennium kit is fantastic, give me light and a smile on me dial.
When you ***k up you'll break gear, light or heavy, so always have two masts, booms etc… and plenty 'o' duct tape at the beach to keep sailing and learn to fix stuff. When was the last time you saw a snapped in half board, we use to see them every session but they were low tech, cheap, heavy and sailed terribly in comparison to today's gear.
Keep the cost down? Get into jet skis, snow skiing or car racing for a while to find out how cheap windsurfing really is. A top of the line epoxy/sandwich Windtech 15-20yrs ago was $2200-2800AUD, not that different to what we pay today for pretty similar construction, as consumers how long do we want prices to stay put?
The killer day with the right gear stays with you longer than how you saved 500 at the cash register then have been stuck with a heavy dog you've struggled on for 5 seasons.
Boards magazine under Ian Leonids regime tested the same boards back to back in different constructions. (heavier v. lighter.)
In summary, they found performance differences to be minimal, and mostly in peoples minds.
Perhaps they were too inexperienced to tell!!
