Features

The Big Picture: Naish

Naish have released their latest Pivot plus a brand-new control system, the Sync bar. We spoke to designers Ewan Jaspan about the Pivot and Noah Hoffman about the Sync.

Photos: Andy Troy, Frankie Bees, Ryan Quinn, Samuel Cárdenas

I’M ON IT: FLYSURFER ERA

New Zealand’s Hugo Wigglesworth recently broke the WOO World Record with a jump height of 36.7 meters. We chatted to him about this achievement and the ERA kite that took him stratospheric.

Photo Sophie Aynaud

Police in Helicopter

Stig Hoefnagel loves a photoshoot and in this instance it bagged him this issue’s cover. But when he headed out with photographer Andy Troy to capture the latest Big Air kite from Naish, the Psycho, things turned out a bit spicier than they’d planned… They ran into the cops and helicopters, and Stig wasn’t the only one flying that day…

Decide, commit, succeed!

Nathalie Lambrecht has consistently appeared on the podium over the last couple of years, both in Big Air and freestyle competitions. She came into the recent Lords of Tram event as the favorite and achieved the biggest score of the women’s contest. But a missed trick in her first heat saw her battling for survival in round two. How would she keep the focus needed to fight her way through the gusty conditions to the final and a podium place…?

Beauty in Steel

If you’ve kept an eye on the Kite Park League events over the last year, you’ll know that Noè Font has placed first or second on the podium every time. But he is not just a talented rider, he is also involved in making the key features and rails for the events. His good friend Xander Raith, also no stranger to the podium, tells us about the hard work and the beauty of the process that goes into making the features. We also hear from photographer Andre Magarao who caught up with Noè at the Brazil event last year. It might even inspire you to give rails a try for yourself…

The Mission: Chasing Sunrays

Kari Schibevaag and friends Catrine, Lone and Guro embarked on a journey south to swap the freezing temperatures of Norway’s winter for the welcoming warmth of Egypt. The land of ancient wonders and crystal-clear water dished up a kiting and yachting adventure in the sun that was just what they needed. And, spoiler alert, they even got to swim with dolphins.

The Mission: Rendezvous at Sunset

We’ve said it before in these illustrious pages, and we’ll no doubt say it again, the golden hour as the sun goes down is usually an outstanding time to take photos, and the Levitaz team proved that point on their recent trip to Egypt to photograph their latest board range. Product manager Michael Zeilinger told us all about it.

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Behind the Clip: Driven by the Wind

Baptiste Bourdoulous wanted to show the world how incredible the Greek island of Mykonos can be for kiting and particularly for Big Air high jinks. What better way to do so than to invite World Champion Andrea Principi over, sprinkle in some Aaron Hadlow, convey them to the best spots on the island, get the cameras rolling, and put together this stunning video.

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CCC: The diaries of Cohan and Steezy Pete

The premise of the Road to Megaloop video series is simple – take one seasoned pro, in the form of Cohan van Dijk, and give them one hopeless kitesurfer (me, Steezy Pete, long-standing compadre of Colin Colin Carroll) to coach, coax and cajole into pulling a megaloop, the most distinctive trick in the sport and the one every new kiter has dreamed of landing for the last 20 years. If I pulled it off, Colin, orchestrator and villain of the project, would be getting hanked, à la Nick Jacobsen in Hidden Lines, by Nick himself. If I failed, it wasn’t only my hair (and dignity) on the line, but Cohan’s as well. No pressure then…