I tested the new Lahui Kai 14' on Sunday 17/05/12 @ Lake Kawana. It was impressive to see Kelly Margetts post the fastest time of the day beating top competitors on all the other leading brands. These were the worst conditions I had seen for a lap of the 4.2km course, if it was more favourable Kelly would have smashed the lap record ( he's now got 2nd fastest time from this day)
I was impressed by the stability of the 14' I tested and also the speed. First go I posted a fast time & was impressed by the way the board handled the wash from other boards, it's glide and new design.
Kelly supplied some good detail on the board which I have attached:
The new Lahui Kai 14 and 12'6 are a combination of design between long time coach/waterman Mick Dibetta with his experience in prone paddling the Molokai channel and legendary board shaper Dick Van Strallen, the key was to find an optimum balance between stability and speed and a board that can handle all conditions, downwind, flat and even up wind. Lahui Kais unique nose allows it to smoothly split the water not push it and with the displacement underneath feeding the concave so the water has a shorter distance to travel before being released out the tail, in essence like creating the board to ride it's own wake. With the combination of the rails and chime allow the board to sit on top of the water giving stability and speed with my favorite feature being when the board rolls/tilts it doesn't lose any speed. Now back on the deck Lahui Kai has a flat foot well for comfort and optimum paddling position, they come with a custom paint job to keep your board unique and extra handles to improve transitions in races. With Lahui Kais latest design being computer shaped it can still be custom shaped to suited specs with the reliability and precision of the latest design and features something production boards can't offer.