I was wondering how short is to short for a board? I was thinking of making my own....I still may, but realized I have a skim board that I can strap some bindings to, but the board is only 113 cm long. Is this too short? Thanks!

I was curious about trying the same thing...just to ride the shallows of the water. I've seen it done on vids where guys have ridden the boards even out into the deeper stuff like you would a regular kiteboard. My guess would be that your best bet would be to just try it out without the foot straps in the shallows and see how it does before you go drilling holes to mount bindings.

Or you could always just build your own...
http://kitesurfingschool.org/board.htm
Lots of people have been doing this and while they work, they aren't always the most efficient depending on how you tweek it, etc. to get it just right. But it is a less expensive way to go about getting a board.

If you try the skim..let us know how it works. I really interested to hear how it goes. Maybe I'll try it this summer myself.
~Joe

Around here a lot of folks use a skim as there LOW wind board. From what i understand they plain and cut up wind amazingly easy. No one puts straps on them that I know.
Probably the most popular board design that people home build is a copy of Flysurfers Flydoor. They call the the PLYdoor and they make great low wind boards.

I tried it out yesterday...no straps or any bindings at all, but didn't have much luck, When i stood on the board it just stuck in the same place and wouldn't move. I got it to move a few times, but not much luck, but had fun anyways, I'll keep trying and we'll see what happens. I did check out some of those sites to build my own and that looks pretty cool and fairly simple to I'll try that soon.

How deep of water did you try to start off in? From what I've seen you have to have the kite up and flying then step on the board too....would imagine you tried that. I can't imagine it would hurt to try to set it up with foot straps, go out deeper and strap in like you would a regular kiteboard, then launch from the sitting position as you would with a kiteboard.

Here's a guy on a nobile skim...specifically made for kiting though. Pretty cool video. He doesn't have straps, but he also doesn't start off any of the ways I mentioned. Will look into it myself as well...I'm sure someone knows how to start off....
http://kitefilm.com/video/shinnskim.wmv
~Joe