Postby kiteingcolin » Thu Nov 22, 2007 11:39 pm
In 3 months I have had the good fortune to try out 6 new 08 kites, all SLE, all top of the range,
They were EH rippehr 12 and 9mtr
Core riot 12 mtr
Royal era 14 mtr
Slingshot rev 11mtr
Naish helix
And now the best nemi 14 mtr ez valve (best offer ez valve or standard valve)
All kites were offered on demo and for a good long period of a week or more,
Kite it right (tom) supplied the EH rippehr’s and the beast (not flown)
Sean at air jam the royal era, he gave me the era board and a small era 9mtr as well
The core riot, slingshot rev, and Naish helix were sent up from mark at Whitstable windsurfing, these 3 kites I did not get on with and did not buy, so I was so surprised that mark offered me the nemi 14 mtr on demo, as the write ups I gave the helix and the rev were very unpopular with the supporters of the said brands, and the guys at slingshot really threw their anger in my direction,
If I like any gear I try I will buy it,
I own the 12 rippehr, 2 small warroo’s and 2 new 08 nobile 666’s
And I have just sold my 14 mtr 08 royal era, which was superb for very light winds
I am your normal joe average guy who sails a lot, likes to sail in any wind- light to silly strong, in flat water to the biggest waves I can find (Rhosniger) I don’t do handle passes, or sail unhooked, boosting is my skill, fast high aggressive sailing is my bag, I don’t sail in front of a camera or pimp gear for anyone, I have been a instructor self employed, but my job pays more than enough so I gave it up after i smashed my ankle into a sea wall, and was left with my foot hanging off,
I was so pleased when mark phoned me up to offer the nemi 14 mtr as I am off to Egypt in 8 weeks and I had no big kite to go with,
And for mark to offer me a kite just shows how impartial he his, what a guy!!
in the last 9 weeks I gave less than good feedback on the kites he had sent to me, he lost time and money on doing that, and got agro from one of the importers after I said what I felt about the gear, mark is so impartial, and will never push a brand for the sake of profit, and likes to know what his customers think of the gear he sells to them, and will do what he can if you don’t like the kit he has sold you, and if you have a problem, then he sorts it, quickly,
anyways, back to the kite,
right from the outset you can see this is a totally new kite, even the bag is way different, I have not worked it out yet, its big enough, but there are so many straps and zips, there is even a pocket for an I pod, with a special ear phone hole to keep sand away from your music system, what is going on here? is any one going to use that???
But I am not knocking the bag, it’s a bag, and its good, but different!
The pump has a pressure gauge, wow! But yet again the pump is for pigmy’,midgets and gnomes only, if your over 4ft tall the pump is too short,
But as for the kite---wow!
Build quality is now way up there, from every corner of this kite, it is built to last, cash has been spent on little extras, the ez pump system is hidden, no pipes anywhere,
All done by magic and mirrors
Each strut has its own non ball valve, they blow up very hard with the main strut but when you deflate the main tube the struts stay hard, you have to undo the valve on each strut, no ball means quick air dump and the kite rolls up tiny small, brilliant!!
I remember the 06 best kites, I even had 2, build quality was poor to not good,
07 was very good to great, this 08 is hard to beat to superb.
I use EH bars on all my kites at the moment as they are the only 4 line full spinning bars that leash out on to one line, the 07 best bars only fire off on to the 2 front lines, a big problem if a line breaks or your caught in a squall, I hope best sort this out for the 08 bars, this is the same short fall in design for all other brands of bars as far as I am aware,
The main tube on the 14 nemi is thin, very thin, and as such takes very little time to fully inflate the kite, the struts end up very stiff and hard without any problem, the valves are there if want to top one up, buy why would you?
The kite is thin in profile a little like my eh rippehr I was thinking
The bridle is short but the front bridle is sort of fussy, “lots going onâ€Â