The 2008 Naish Cult rocks!
September 13th, 2008 ScottI was approved this summer to replace/upgrade my kiting quiver. I started kiting in 2000 on a Wipika Free Air. The latest Naish kite at that time was the AR5. That seems like a long time ago. My current quiver was all Naish kites, a 8.0 Boxer II, a 12.0 Aero, and a 18.0 Aero II. My board was a Mauricio Abreu Wipika 144 wakestyle board. It took me a long time to get that quiver put together and I thought it would last me forever. The year after I added the Aero II is when the SLEs started coming out and everything I had was suddenly old school. I got into bicycle racing and had a broken hip one summer from that and a separated shoulder the next season so I haven’t been kiting much the last two years. In that time it would appear that many refinements to the SLE design have come about and after much research I decided that a quiver of 2008 Naish Cults would be the way to go along with a 140 Naish Sol board.
Big Winds in Hood River set me up with a good deal because the 2009 Cults just came out and I ordered a 10.5, 13.5, and 15.0. They have been sitting in my back room waiting all week for wind and with the typhoon hitting Taiwan this weekend, we are getting 18 – 27 mph winds here in a perfect SE direction for our beach. I waited til I saw locals going out though because I didn’t know if typhoon fringe winds were dangerous or okay to go out in. With 18 – 27 range I would’ve put up my old 12.0 Aero and hung on for dear life during the gusts and pumped like mad to get through the lulls. It would’ve been a hard day of kiting.
I put up the 10.5 Cult thinking it was a little light for that kite, but it’s almost dead onshore here and I’ve had enough bad first experiences with new gear to know that going out a little light was the safe way to go. This is the first kite I’ve had with the octopus system (only one place needs to be pumped) and I think it’s a great idea. I don’t think I’ll like it much if I ever have to remove a bladder for a patch job though. That internal plumbing must be a bear.
After a quick assist from Gina, I put the kite up, grabbed the new Sol and stepped out far enough from shore to put the kite into a power dive and try to get out. I worked it hard to advance as much as possible and was going somewhat slow, but when I tacked back I realized that I had been going WAY upwind and had gotten well clear of the shore in just two passes. I also very quickly realized that it was impossible to oversheet the kite in the lulls (I had a bad experience testing an SLE last year and kept oversheeting it — poor set up) and at the same time I could tame the biggest gusts just by straghtening my arms. The next thing I noticed is that the kite turned brutally fast. It was faster by a long shot than any kite I’ve ever flown. However, the huge depower range made that speed forgiving because you could just shut the power off if you turned it too quickly in the power zone.
In a matter of minutes I felt more comfortable on this gear than I ever had on any set up I’ve ever used, and this in probably some of the most challenging gusty, mixed chop and swell conditions I’ve ever flown in. In a word, the session was buttery. It would’ve been anything but that on my old gear. After crashing the kite and watching it relaunch before I even tried to put in bar input I felt confident enough to try a small jump. I set up for what would’ve been a simple hop on my old gear just to get a feel for the kite placement in the zone and the timing of the pop on the board. My old gear would’ve put me no more than a foot or two off the water and maybe covering 5 – 10 downwind on the landing. Well, this small set up turned into about a 10 foot high jump that floated downwind a good 30 feet. I can’t wait to see what happens when I really crank into it on a good day with a swell to launch from.
Overall, I can’t be more pleased. This was the first board after many tries that actually worked better than my antique gear and the kite is on a whole new level from my old gear.
I can’t wait to get out again. This stuff rocks!