If you go down to the beach and look at the kites been flown the chances are the one that will catch your eye will be the new Naish Cult sigma series. All of the new Naish Sigma Kites look radically different with their angular design and tight canopy. It is with no doubt that Naish Kiteboarding have done their homework everything stated in their design brief about both Geo tech and Sigma outline makes engineering sense but the question is will it all work.
Having been kindly given a Naish Cult by James from Naish UK to demo, it is with eager anticipation that the Naish Cult kite was taken out and inspected. On pumping up the Naish Cult has Naish’s octopus inflation system, the build quality of the kite also looks very good with plenty of scuff guards and bumpers. You also notice that the kite features a lot of Naish’s “aramid reinforcements” these are used to help keep the kite in the designed shape and strengthen the corners.
The Naish bar and lines are nice and simple. The lines work off a direct 1:1 system with de-power below the bar. The safety system is also obvious and can be released and reloaded simply and quickly. The bar feels nice in the hands and is comfortable to use. The simplicity of the bar makes it clutter free and is super easy to use. The only downside was the lack of the stopper ball, this makes spinning the bar tricky and we found that shorter riders like myself struggled to reach the bar when fully de-powered. (This stopper ball does however come in the bag) You just have to put it on yourself no real hardship it’s just that when you buy this kite you will be super stoked and rushing to get out on the water and the last thing you will be thinking about is fitting the Naish stopper ball!
On the water the first thing you noticed is that the there is a light bar pressure, their is still positive feedback but if you are not use to it, it will take a bit of time to get dialled in. The effect of the geo-tech and sigma series features is apparent in the flight of the kite. Firstly it is super stable and has a lovely solid feel to the kite. Even when we attempted to make the kite over fly and fall out of the sky it would not and instead just sat there rock solid. In loops or aggressive turns there was minimal if any flutter. In the air the Naish Cult demonstrate a consistent power delivery through the up stroke, down stroke and turns. This gave the kite an ultra smooth feeling and coupled with the impressive low end grunt was astounding in light winds.
The Naish cult 2008 demonstrated an impressive arsenal for most disciplines. As an unhooked kite it is very grunty with a lot to pop against, un-hooked it still demonstrates a continual pull. The airs on the kite are impressive being both big and boosty. Probably the forte was in wave riding, the kites continual even pull through the turns as well as the power stroke, it is quick and responsive and the re-launch is quick and easy making it an ideal weapon.
The smooth power delivery, responsiveness and easy re-launch of the Naish Cult make it an ideal kite for beginner’s / intermediates and wave riders. It provides massive scope with its unhooking potential and would be immediately be down as a kite accessible to anyone. The advantages of Naish’s technology are best seen through the continual power delivery and smooth turns and you have to think that Naish are on to a winner with this kite. After testing the cult we were very surprised that these aren’t more common on the beaches. Maybe this is due to a wait and see approach due to the big changes from the norm of kite design. In our opinion these kites will only gain in popularity and following as once tried they will win many over.
James Ward
S2AS Team
Surface 2 Air Sports