New Stuff from North and Naish

Hi
I said that I would post when more 2015 equipment made its appearance on the sites.  North and Naish have both shown signs of life!

North
North has added details and specs for their freeride/race sails.  The new S_Type sl sail is something I have been looking forward to and it looks good I have to say.

There is not too much of a batten overhang at the back of the boom and the whole thing looks tight and right.  The nice thing with this sail, is that one of the 3 cams is removable so you can experiment with this to suit your style/power/control requirements.  Very cool!

Naish
Naish have all of their 2015 windsurfing gear up.  They always interest me because they are a brand not easily persuaded by fads and fashions in the industry.  While I admire this, I just have a nagging feeling that they may be falling behind the curve a bit.  Their boards are still really long and narrow but fat for the volume.
The two boards which would be of interest are the Bullet Slalom and the Starship.

The Starship is a hard core bump-and-jump model with a shape which would work really well here. The problem for me is that it is made from wood and glass fiber.  The 65 (ish) wide board weighs in at 8kg!  Come on guys!

Their Bullet is light enough however, and one would need to try each of the three sizes to get a handle of how they perform with a variety of sail types and sizes.  They each come with a fin which looks quite good.  Bear in mind, these machines are made by real sailors, for real sailors in real world conditions so I give them respect despite their old school dimensions.  Take your best, most modern slalom board and sail.  Put Robbie on a Bullet and challenge him to a race. Then prepare to experience the mother of all ass-kickings!

The Naish sails don't excite me at all.  The Bullet slalom model looks much the same as in prior years (still fast though - see my "Robbie" comment above) and the other models just seem a little tired.  The Supermoto with 5 battens and one cam.  I don't know!  The new Noa is a bit interesting but there is a lot of good stuff available in this niche from other designers.

Talk to you soon