Appletree Applino V2 White-line

We’ve seen a regular stream of tantalizing wave-based media from Paulino Pereira over the years, whether it be full stand-up barrels on his home turf in Portugal, ridiculously stylish strapless freestyle, or his competitive side on the GKA tour. It seems only correct that he has a pro model from Appletree, as they manufacture so close to his hometown. Now in its second version, the Applino V2 pitches itself as a board for advanced strapless riding.

We tested the board in Appletree’s standard white-line construction which is a more traditional surf build with biaxial fiberglass over their waterproof closed-cell foam. Looking sideways across the industry, it can definitely withstand more than your average kiteboard and will take a hard strapless landing like a champ, but favors the rider who’s more wave focused. The White-line models include an Appletree EVA deckpad and Futures fin boxes in a traditional thruster setup as standard.

Watching Paulino’s smooth and powerful style it’s fascinating to see how they’ve developed a board to match. The base channeling is unique and interesting, located more or less directly under your stance. It provides an extra dose of speed and grip along with flattening the rocker in the center section giving the board a little more tracking and upwind ability over a more traditional surf-bottom shape. The rails have a perfectly honed channel top and bottom to enable an easy catch and firm grip for grabbed strapless tricks; even if you’re not an aerial kind of rider, it has the bonus of making the board extremely practical to pick up with one hand on the beach. A single concave runs down the fairly generous rocker into a V shape in front of the fins, and a small kick in the square tail helps free it up under aggressive carving.

Underfoot the Applino V2 feels immediately very mobile with high levels of agility and a snappy feedback from turns. It likes to ride with decent forward speed, but the planing ability means it doesn’t bog significantly at lower speed, and powers out of a turn with plenty of momentum. The channeling helps smooth out choppier conditions and can really dig in, hold an edge and grip when required, which is essential for speed control and positioning on the wave, as well as loading up for a strapless takeoff. The squared tail shape works wonders for a proper full-power layback slice in the pocket, with the board releasing and pivoting around the fins both aggressively and predictably. It surprised us how comfortable it was to do a full reverse and ride out backwards. We tested in a massive range of autumnal UK conditions ranging from messy and big bolt-onshore to side-offshore large and consequential waves, and the board felt comfortable in any situation we threw it into.

The Applino V2 is a purposeful and discipline-spanning machine, working exceptionally well across a range of wave conditions as well as having the toughness and clever in-built features to perform strapless freestyle when necessary. It’s going to suit mid to advanced level riders who want to push their riding in more consequential sea states, and need a surfboard that’s not technical to ride, allowing them to concentrate on the task in hand – a true workhorse with a huge performance potential.