BWS Noise Pro 2015

This latest version of the Noise Pro has had a bit of love from the art department at BWS, and has also had a few tweaks from the bridle department as well. The stealthy vibe is there – it just looks like it has made a bit of an effort for a big night out… As ever, the Noise Pro is a very light kite with no excessive EVA or Dacron piling on the pounds. It’s not the kind of kite you want to be dragging around the beach unnecessarily, but it’s not aimed at the kind of kiters who are going to be bouncing it around the beach too much. General ‘under the bonnet’ construction and stitching is bomb proof – the Noise Pro is engineered and stitched to laugh in the face of a double overhead set wave.

Performance wise and the surf pedigree is obvious from the off. In marginal conditions it needs a couple of strokes to get going and then it delivers very smooth and intuitive feedback at the bar. The general power response is even throughout the throw of the bar. The kite sits deep in the window, but get it trimmed properly and it will get you back up to the lineup in good time. You do need decent kite skills to fly the Noise Pro properly – as ever with wave kites, the smaller kite you can ride the better, so you need to be competent at getting the most out of a small kite, but you then have minimum distraction when you are getting involved with the business end of things…

Riding on to a wave and the Noise Pro turns on its axis so it is easy to place where you need it to be. In onshore conditions it spins round quickly, enabling you to put power where you need it – there is no aggressive pull and you can switch off the power easily with plenty of throw to play with. On/off is excellent and you can really use this to your favor…

In cross-off conditions, the Noise Pro just loves to drift. As soon as you feel the power of the wave taking over from the power of the kite there is no unwanted input from the kite and you can position it where it needs to be, sheet out and it will lead the way down the line. There is no tendency to dip down in the window as can happen with other surf kites, and it is happy to just park up so you can enjoy the ride. Again, having a good amount of throw enables you to really switch the kite off and focus 100% on riding the wave.