All our boards are handmade here in the Outer Banks. We use traditional construction along with reinforcements in key areas. All my boards are designed, shaped, and glassed entirely in-house. Most brands don’t offer that.
Ben Wilson was in the shaping room when Slingshot made it and ended up liking it so much he took it home with him. He said it changed his life. He then convinced Slingshot to develop a full line of Celeritas boards.
For 2010, Balance focused on further refining the construction of their boards to extract the last ounce of possible performance. Designer Carlos Saez is utterly confident that they have the highest parts specification and construction found anywhere in the kitesurf market.
We wanted to give one of the best SLE kites ever built a major face lift. We envisioned the high demand in 2010 for a no-center-strut design, so we redesigned the Havoc on a 4-strut structure, giving room for a much deeper and more powerful profile in the center of the kite where it’s really needed.
For the 2010 Vsonic, designer Mat Pendle almost totally eliminated the kite’s V shape. The new GKVDelta shape is more like a high aspect ratio delta.
We were sent a 12m Cult and rode it in 20+ mph winds. Inflating the Cult is simple and fast with the Octopus single point inflation system. The overall quality of the Cult is one of a kind with solid construction throughout the kite.
First off, the Wainman Hawaii Blunts ship with a board bag and everything you need to set it up without going to your tool box. The 130 Blunt has attention getting graphics, a nice thin profile with soft rails all around the board and some mad concave.
Upon inflating the MX, we found it to be a stylish kite complete with Caution’s trademark flame graphics across the top of the canopy. The Mayhem X is very stable, rock solid in the gusts, and delivers a strong consistent power stroke.
There is no doubt people will see you coming with this kite – we couldn’t help but be attracted to the colorful graphics of the kite and bag. Upon setting up the Obsession, one of the most noticeable things we found was its long bridle, however, it seems to work perfectly with this kite design.
Anyone planning to buy this kite should spend at least a month playing around with the tuning and different settings. Yes, it does work out of the bag just fine, but the NXG is the dream kite for those who like to tinker.
We were surprised and intrigued at how fun new school C-kites have become. The one common myth that was dispelled during out test was that the Torch doesn’t have mass appeal: It’s not just a high end performance kite that can only be enjoyed by experts.
We read the hype about the Octane on many of the forums before we tested, so our staff was excited when a 13m arrived in the mail. After spending hours riding this kite, we have to admit it lived up to its reputation and more.
The Envy is a very easy and fast kite to inflate due to the Union single point inflation system and the fact that the Envy is only designed with 3-struts. By taking away the 5th and 4th struts, Liquid Force was able to make a lighter kite.
Due to the success of the 2009 Helix and the new 2010 Helix, essentially a brand new kite, Naish combined the best of last year’s Helix and Cult to product the 2010 Cult.
The biggest challenge was trying to get all of the features we wanted to incorporate into the bar to work together in a streamlined design, without compromise.
The goal was to incorporate some of the newest neoprene technologies to make the Zealot even warmer, lighter, and stretchier than last year.
I had taken the Nemesis HP design as far as it would go. I simply couldn’t make it jump higher, ride faster or deliver more power, so we had to look at other ways of improving it.
The Surge is a completely new design within a traditional C-kite geometry.
The flying feeling and performance can be adjusted to react like the Trix 09, but can also be adjusted like a totally new kite with low bar pressure, very stable, perfect for cruising.
We kept the name the same for the 2010 model, but made significant changes to the profile and wingtips, making some serious gains in efficiency and control.
Liquid Force has designed a completely new safety and control system to go with its 2010 lines of kites. We spoke to LF kite designer and pro rider Julien Fillion to find out about the company’s new CPR control system.
The Obsession was already a great kite, so we focused on small details to improve its overall performance.
The main goal was to capture the highest performance wave characteristics of my top surfboard and make it suitable for kiting.
The Waroo is a known commodity — riders know what to expect from it. To keep moving the kite forward we had to make significant changes to its shape.
This is the third generation of the original, patent-pending delta design introduced by F.one in 2007 but it is really a new kite with a new profile, outline, aspect ratio, bridle, bar and graphics.
The 2010 Octane our is the next generation of one our most successful designs, the 2009 Rev, but also incorporates the DNA from our original Octane which people loved, making it the next evolution of that style kite.
