Innholdsfortegnelse for #36 i TheKiteMag

INTRODUCING AN ALL-NEW PARANORMAL SHAPE FROM TONY LOGOSZ, THE GHOST V 1. DESIGNED FROM THE GROUND UP TO BE LIGHT, SIMPLE, AND INSANELY FUN TO FLY, THE GHOST IS ONE OF THE MOST EXCITING NEW KITES IN OUR RANGE. IT’S AN OUT OF THIS WORLD ALL AROUND KITE THAT HAS JUST ONE STRUT FOR INCREDIBLE HANDLING AND STEERING PRECISION FOR BEGINNERS, EXPERTS, AND FOILERS ALIKE. IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A LIGHTWEIGHT ULTRA-SIMPLE KITE TO TAKE YOUR RIDING, FOILING, OR KITE TRICKS TO THE NEXT LEVEL, THE GHOST IS YOUR FRIENDLY COMPANION. THE FIRST SIZE RUN FOR THE GHOST WILL SPAN FROM 2.5 ALL THE WAY TO A 17. ITS FLYWEIGHT CONSTRUCTION, ONE STRUT DESIGN, AND SEGMENTED SWEPT WINGTIPS COVER BOTH LOW AND HIGH END WIND GIVING IT A NICHE…

As you may know I am lucky enough to call Cabo Verde my home. An archipelago, we have 10 islands in the center of the Atlantic Ocean. For many years it has been a well-kept secret of paradise islands but our biggest secret is our ocean which is home to some of the greatest breaks in the world. I have been spending most of my time this winter riding one of the most amazing waves in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean… an incredible, powerful wave amongst the archipelago with unbelievably huge barrels. It was a kind of legendary spot when I was growing up and I have seen and heard stories about it for many years since I was a kid, when I used to spend time with my…

At the start of World War II, the Luna Moon was intentionally sunk by its owner so she couldn’t be used in the war. She was resurfaced in 1949 and refitted as a fishing vessel. She was then purchased in 1982 and refitted again, this time into a gaff rig schooner, and she was bought by a company in the Seychelles to be used as a luxury charter vessel. In 2019, she was purchased by a South African businessman, upgraded, and delivered to Nasi Bay in Madagascar, where she is now being used for a sailing academy and for surf charters. I traveled to Madagascar this past September and boarded the Luna Moon with Jalou Langeree, Catta Edin, Patri McLaughlin, Ydwer Van Der Heide, and Mint Grigas in search of…

The guys at Lieuwe have an exciting new collaboration with a company that that most kitesurfers will be familiar with, Teijin. We know them more as a canopy cloth company, supplying the majority of the global kite market with their TechnoForce® canopy, but they do much more than that, and have now turned their gaze to the world of twintip tech… WHAT CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT TEIJIN AND THE PRODUCTS THEY PRODUCE THAT YOU ARE USING? A while ago they approached our team rider Roderick Pijls to test their materials and to help create and develop (in cooperation with Lieuwe) a new board that offers new technologies, and features that the current boards on the market don’t have. Teijin Aramid, based in the Netherlands, is a composite/high performance fiber…

JOIN THE GOOD WAY A founder and family-run business that is not ruled by investors. We provide European handicraft and not the Asian or American mass production. We develop jointly with our dealers, team riders and end users, not just product managers. We guarantee durable premium products instead of simple and cheap disposable goods. Our motto is more fun through strong performance, instead of more sales through low prices. We prefer timeless wood designs that have already won 5 design awards, rather than short-lived trends. When we started 10 years ago, we only had long and hard boards. Now we offer boards for kids, teenagers, women and men. We focus on sustainable and healthy growth rather than on overproduction with profit optimization. We do big tours for testing with competent…

THE MIRACLE OF KITE Within these pages you’ll find plenty of examples of what kitesurfing is ‘all about’ and how we like to showcase the sport: impossibly huge airs, way-too-deep barrels, shoulder-dislocatingly-extended rotations. In short, we’re saying to you (and the rest of the world): “KITESURFING IS AN EXTREME SPORT. ARRRGGGHHHHHH!” Which it is. But it doesn’t always have to be, as demonstrated perfectly by Julien Fillion in the shot I have elected to grace the editorial pages of this issue. Sometimes you need to take a second and think about the nature of what you are actually doing… So when you next dig in your edge/wing and glide through the water, just take a moment to look around and think about what is going on. The fact is that…

There are a few kiteable spots in Grado, but it depends on the season where you’re allowed to go and where not. Outside the summer season with beaches full of bathers, swimmers and umbrellas, it is usually no problem to start from the normal beaches in front of the old town as well as Grado Pineta which is located a bit further up the east coast (but please note that it is always advisable to check the spot for any signage before you rig up, as rules can change anytime!). Grado is surrounded by a huge lagoon with shallow water and a huge standing area as well as flat water depending on the wind direction and the amount of sea grass underneath. Beaches are sandy and usually you’ll find enough…

And so it is done for another year… The excitement of the King of the Air builds for 10 months, and then this year it was over in a thunderous 10 hours. Although the event seems to pass by in the blink of an eye (so that you wake up the next day and have to trawl back through the heats to piece it all back together again) you never forget who won the event. Second place is nice, but for the riders this is the event. They train all year and work hard for just one thing: to lift that iconic trophy and to be on the top of the podium. Each year there are mini-battles and new-stars who emerge through the early heats, but every year it seems…

On this particular trip, Josh told me he has a rule for himself: “Never stay in a place for a shorter time than you’re traveling to it for.” With a good 40 hours of driving ahead and a plan to only stay a couple of days, we were pushing that rule. You might ask yourself why someone would decide last moment to book a flight from Durban to Cape Town, hop in to a car and drive another 20 hours. Well, the big reason for this entire adventure was a forecast that’s really rare for the African summer. A big swell was about to hit the Skeleton Coast in Namibia, and it would push life into a break that a few of us have always dreamed of kiting! For me,…

This trick is by far the hardest and most technical trick I have learnt on a strapless board, not only is keeping the board on your feet difficult but landing with so much speed can sometimes become unstable and makes this trick one of the hardest to become consistent with. By far my favorite trick from my bag at the moment. It might sound wrong but if you learn to handle the landing then the more power you have, the easier this trick is. Trust me. STEP 1 Load up the speed, this trick requires a fair amount of it. If it’s super windy and power is an issue then try to go a little slower as you’ll get more lift with the added power but generally try and have…

Having successfully engineered a comprehensive kite, board and foil line up in record time this latest release sees North turn their eye firmly to the ‘performance freeride’ sector of the market. We caught up with North Brand Director Mike Raper and Chief Kite Designer Pat Goodman to find out more. SO, A NEW ARRIVAL TO THE NORTH KITEBOARDING KITE RANGE? WHAT DOES THE REACH BRING TO THE PARTY AND WHY SHOULD WE WANT TO RIDE IT? MR: The Reach is the kite we’ve been missing - the kite that does it all. If you were marooned on a desert island this is the kite you’d want to have with you. Not only does it perform in all conditions, but it’s instantly familiar and high-performance, without being difficult to use. WHAT…

Eco-friendly, sustainable, green, recycled, ethical – these terms are commonly thrown around by brands without much implication or accountability as to what they actually mean. Recently, I ordered a salad from a take-out bar. As I sat down to eat, I looked at the box it came in. It was called an “eco-box”, and it was brown, which upon first impression had made me feel ok with it. It was eco! All good. But upon closer inspection, the fine print on the bottom read “made from 20% post-consumer cardboard”. Only 20%?! Plus, that box couldn’t be recycled due to the plastic lining that almost all cardboard food containers utilize to protect against leaks, etc. This box wasn’t so “eco” after all… As consumers, we’re shouldered with the burden of choosing…

TKM: The day prior to this photo getting taken I was looking at the wind forecast and it was looking promising for Big Air on short lines. Pulling a kiteloop on short lines, over Table Mountain, with my kite underneath me was the photo we were going for. Meeting at 3pm at the beach, the wind was looking promising and, just before entering the water, Rein told me, “Oh, I also want to shoot another photo with the sunset”. In other words: stay on the water from 3.30 untl 8.30pm! Once the sun was setting he explained his idea to me: “throw a kicker-trick, with loads of spray, kite as low as possible and in line with me and the sun”. After trying several times, he asked me to bring…

There are few places with more options for riding waves than cape town, and also few places which serve up super windy, gusty and challenging conditions on a regular basis… a great place to hone your skills as a true wave-riding all-rounder and the kind of spot where having the right board under your feet really does make all the difference… This year’s Maquina has a redesigned outline with a slightly wider nose allowing the board a wider range of uses. There is also a soft ‘winger’ design to increase planing and control at high speeds. There is a deep concave throughout the board with a flat, kicked tail, released by a progressive rocker, with thin rails from nose to tail and a super thin profile throughout. It is strictly…

You know those black blobs that occasionally pop up on the surf charts? Generally they remain black in the middle of the ocean, before morphing into more of a crimson as they reach land. Well this swell stayed black as it hit land… It was the swell that lit up Nazaré as rarely seen before, and a swell that saw Matchu frothing, and Keahi leave Hawaii and head for a small archipelago in the middle of the next ocean along, the Atlantic. We have been sworn to secrecy as to its exact whereabouts but it’s somewhere in Cape Verde and – well – you probably wouldn’t want to go there anyway. It is the slab to end all slabs……

1 // Slingshot Ghost With one of the largest foil line ups on the market, the guys at Slingshot needed a super-efficient kite to maximize water time and enable you to get the very most out of your session. The Ghost is a single strut kite with ‘Flyweight’ construction to get you up and riding on even the most absurdly lightwind of days… 2 // Flysurfer SONIC V3 Remember when foil kites were a bit kooky? Those days are long gone. Nowadays any self-respecting kiter has a foil kite tucked away, and not just for lightwind days – for foiling and for hang time, the fact is they are simply better than inflatable kites… The SONIC is now back for its third instalment and promises blistering speed, performance and hang…

THEY MARC, THANKS FOR TAKING THE TIME OUT TO TALK TO US. SO YOU HAVE BEEN ON THE SCENE FOR SOME TIME NOW – CAN YOU TALK US THROUGH WHEN AND WHERE YOU BEGAN KITING? My kiteboarding journey began in 2015 when I came across Dave Edwards [also known as Mad Dave!]. I watched him over the years which motivated me and inspired me to take up kiting. After saving for three years and working as a paperboy, my mum and I went halves on my first ever inflatable kite. I always remember my 15th birthday as an important milestone. I rode on the beach with my mountain board and would jump off sand dunes practicing flips and rotations until my 16th birthday, when I got my first board. From…

Kiteboarding can be a physical sport especially when the weather conditions are tough. Having strong core muscles will help you stay grounded and help you control the kite more efficiently. The constant pull on the harness may also give you pain in the lower back, especially when the wind is strong and gusty. Strengthening your core muscles will help prevent this. This issue I’ve put together three simple exercises that you might like to try to increase core strength and therefore improve your general fitness for kiting. Russian Twists MUSCLES WORKED OBLIQUES, RECTUS ABDOMINIS, TRANSVERSE ABDOMINIS Plank or Plank to Press Up position MUSCLES WORKED ERECTOR SPINAE, RECTUS ABDOMINIS (ABS), AND TRANSVERSE ABDOMINIS. V Sits MUSCLES WORKED RECTUS ABDOMINIS, EXTERNAL OBLIQUES, INTERNAL OBLIQUES, HIP FLEXORS AND IMPROVES CORE AND TRUNK…

This year, Slingshot have split the iconic Rally into two distinct versions – so enter the Rally GT, and the Raptor, the Rally GT’s Big-Air-focused brother. Here Sam Light tells us a little more about the newest member of the Slingshot family… AN ALL NEW KITE FOR SLINGSHOT, THE RAPTOR! FIRST UP: WHY DID YOU DECIDE YOU NEEDED THE RAPTOR AND WHERE DOES IT SLOT INTO THE LINE UP? The Raptor is a high-flying, Big Air, freeride performance kite, designed to take your boosting to the next level! The Rally was one of our most successful kites of all time, it was the best all-round kite in our range that could take you from zero to hero, it did everything well, but nothing really, really well. Disciplines within our sport…