North Pro Series 2013

Rider: 70kg Style: Surf 15-25 knots

Not had much time on this board and no real surf but having ridden it I have enough to go on for the selection process if you are thinking about a new directional.

First the boards are smaller, they are more kiteboards than surfboards, under power from the kite my 6,2" is very nice and cutting through the water and the rocker can be felt a little bit. Not an issue as it cuts a straight line but if you put the foot back on teh board you can feel the rocker wobble a little.

laying down a hard rail in chop it is excellent, like the kontact there is confidence in hitting those bottom turns hard and digging the rail in without loosing traction. The thuster is more arcing tight turns and not the flat quad turn. It will turn quite whippy and it will break into a tail slide if you turn it flat and hard on the re-entry.

for a light weight rider the 6'2" is perfect and its not a real light wind board at all, I can see myself using it in solid surf and small waves alike, but need some power in the wind. It works well with my 2012 WAM that is 5'10" and much floatier.

Daz

Hey Josh

I had a good surf session on the pro-series in 15-20 knots at Moana, (10m Rebel)

the good thing about this session is that it gave me a light wind end of say 14-15 knots with 12 knot lulls at the start in full onshore 2-3ft surf, being hard to get out the back in marginal winds that were up and down, the board was up and going okay but in that wind you could feel its size and I ended up down wind a bit but more frustrated trying to stay up wind.

I swapped to my 5'10" WAM and with the full finned up quad could stay up wind easy but still had to focus on keeping up wind.

Then we were on the beach and the wind kicked to 15-20 and I grabbed the pro-series. Wow it was so on, in these winds the board was in another world, fast and responsive, easy to gibe, lays down hard turns. once powered the board planes so well for a little rockered surfboard.

The best thing is I noticed that when you let out the power of the kite it rides really well on the wave face. Most smaller kiteboards tend to bog down and you loose the wave ride feel unless its larger with lots of volume, but this board was great, just like a surfboard, that was the best part of riding the board as I was always looking for the wave face and let the power out of the kite, it might not have looked like much from the beach but it feels great to be really surfing.

it is also a 'dry board' as it does not seem to suck water over the deck, theres none of the heavy chop and spray wrapping over the board that I have found with other surfboards or small kiteboards. I mean its normally not much of an issue but its nice to know you can slam into a bottom turn full of chop and not have bit of it hitting your feet on the way through.

Josh see if you can get on one, my only comment would be that it will need a little more wind than those 2 boards in your quiver, especially the Whip which is so good in marginal winds and small wave, but when the wind is on you will not need them. the 6' Kontact for the bigger dude, but you're a whippet and would easilly go a Pro-series for your style of riding.

Daz

Now I have a heap of watertime on the Proseries,

bottom line, I love this board, as long as the wind has hit 15+ its on, 17+ and you are in another world, 2 dasy of 20-25 knots had me frothin over this board, I have no desire to ride anything else unless is marginal and I need to glug around.

as the board is so light and the rocker allows you to throw out moves into white water, and off the lip when I was hesitating before, I doing moves now that I was working up to but now I feel comfortable.

The rail does not get easily trapped by white water so you can lag that bit longer with a move when you are getting chased down in teh pocket or infront of the broken wave.

And its bright yellow :-)

Daz