2024 Naish Kiteboarding Lineup with Derek Sproul

Derek Sproul from Naish takes a few minutes to chat about the 2024 kiteboarding lineup with MACkite's Jake Mitchell at King of the Great Lakes Test Fest. What's new? Is there a must-have coming for your quiver?

Jake: We're super stoked to have you all the way here in Michigan.

Derek: The sun is shining and it's just so beautiful here in late September. There's nowhere I'd rather be. It's awesome.

Jake: Amen to that. So you brought some new gear?

Pivot

Derek: Yeah, we've got a bit of everything in the new lineup for 2024. We've got the brand new 2024 Pivot with a few changes for this year. Ewan Jaspan has taken over our design and expanded the test team to do a bit more outside of Maui. He works out of Hood River and in Maui, so we get a broad range of testing conditions and people using them. He's done a really good job. Ewan knows his stuff as far as tweaking and tuning kites, so he's done a bit of work on the bridles to improve overall performance, focusing on the bigger sizes like the 12 and 14m.

Jake: That's great for us. We need that.

Derek: Yes, the primary sizes that get used most places throughout North America are working a lot better now. We fine-tuned them to be more agile and a little bit less grunty with more consistent power delivery.

Boxer

Derek: Of course, we also have a tried-and-true favorite of foilers everywhere - the Boxer. It's a really good light wind kite. I was flying the 9m on the beach earlier in the light winds we have today. This single strut platform has what we call our "luff strut". It's got a relaxed connection between the canopy and the strut, which allows the canopy to expand and contract with gusts. This gives you the best of both worlds where the kite behaves almost like a strutless kite, but you still have that one strut to help with relaunch by keeping the canopy up off the water. Since the Boxer has a little bit more throw, I actually like it in the bigger sizes as a wave kite as well, so the 12 and 11 work really well as a light wind wave kite.

Everything's still made with our QuadTex material, so it lasts season after season and keeps that tension there. A while back, we introduced a diagonal seam that goes from the leading edge out to the wingtip, and that helps as well with load dispersion. That feature is on our entire line.

Triad

Derek: Our other kite, the Triad, is the little brother to the Pivot, so to speak. It's traditionally been advertised as a beginner/intermediate kite, but I think it's less that and more of a kite that has a bit more sheet-in-and-go, so it's almost preferred for wave riders who like to let the kite sit back and drift. It's still a good jumping kite, though obviously not as good as the Pivot, which has won King of the Air twice now. While the Pivot is a consistent performer for high-end freeride, I would say the Triad is a little more rounded performance freeride kite. It has a bit more emphasis on surf versus the Pivot, which is more for big air but still a great wave kite for guys who like to ride consistently powered up.

The Triad is a three-strut kite, but like the Boxer, it also features the relaxed luff strut.

Jake: And the Pivot doesn't have that?

Derek: Correct. That helps in the gusts. It's a good, rounded line for 2024 with the Pivot, which has set the bar for three-strut all-around performance, the Boxer as an awesome foiling kite with good light wind performance for virtually everything, and the Triad, which is a personal favorite of mine for riding when I'm in the waves.

Jake: So the line has been a bit simplified. That makes sense with winging.

Derek: Right. We've condensed the line a bit more for 2024. We had the five-strut Phoenix come and go quickly. I think a lot of people have gone back to the drawing board this year and focused their line on what's working and what there is a demand for. With our new ownership group, we're taking that consumer-first look at what our customer base really wants and focusing on perfecting that.

Jake: That's awesome.

Derek: Yeah, I'm excited.

Jake: What does the new ownership group mean for the end Naish consumer?

Derek: Robby does still have some skin in the game, so the core soul of the brand is still there. Kubus has been a partner of ours over in Europe for probably 20 years or so, so they know the brand inside and out. They know the history and our heritage, so we're excited. I think we've become a bit more refined moving forward.

Jake: What about your personal quiver? What do you like flying these days?

Derek: I go 7/9m Pivot and 11m Boxer. I do more winging, so I have a 3, 4, and 5m ADX in the quiver with a downwind board. I'm on the Hover 105 doing a lot of downwind paddling. I'm on our HA 1240 foil for downwind paddling, then I keep a 1040 and an 840 HA in the lineup. I am a big fan of our Go-To strapless board, and then for my twintip I'm all about the Traverse.

Jake: It sounds like you're living it right. You've got a lot of toys for winging. How much time do you spend winging? 60, 70 percent?

Derek: It's dropped off this year. The downwind paddling thing is really taking over my time with winging for sure, and then kiting is mainly when I'm at the coast and can get some waves. There are also some really fun flat water lagoon-type spots, but when I'm in Hood River I do a lot of winging.

Jake: I respect that. What a cool period to live in where we have so many options to have fun on the water.

Derek: Exactly. I'm having so much fun. When I was in Maui I was kiting all the time, then I moved back to Oregon and started winging and fell in love with that. Then this last year I got into the downwind program and the challenge of getting up on foil and staying on foil. It's all had its own crossover and it's just a fun time to be in water sports. There's so much good gear and, for the consumer, there are a lot of really great deals going on right now. If you've got an older 2015 Pivot, it could be a great time for looking at upgrading your quiver.

Jake: It's cool because you guys have been here since the beginning, and I think you were also one of the first big brands to buy into winging, so you've been at the forefront of all these movements. So I guess we'll look to you to see what comes next.

Derek: Especially now with Kubus at the helm. It revitalized our R&D and we're getting after our progression again.

Jake: Well, we're stoked with 2024, and it sounds like the best is yet to come.

Derek: We've got some things up our sleeves, yeah.

Jake: We look forward to it!

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