Best Kiteboarding Kahoona 9.5m / 50cm Redline Bar Review
Atbshop riders: Marcus Woodbridge + Greg Chilton
I have no affiliation to Best but do work in the Shop so take this in your own way.
What is the Best Kahoona?
Well Best say the new Best Kahoona is the perfect choice for every rider looking for a super stable, easy-to-rig, easy-to-fly kite. (But is it really all of this?)
Short answer = Yes. Stu from the shop spent a few days in Egypt brushing up on his kitesurfing skills with the whole range of kites and only had a good word to say about them - simple, stable, almost automatic relaunch and extremely grunty.
Stu in Egypt:
I didn't want to purely take Stu's word on the new kite so had to get my hands on one!
We did up wrap this in the shop before taking it out for a session, to be honest it doesn't look much lying out on the ground, one solid colour, a bit of graphic and the obvious loss of a centre strut, arguably however the kite does a fair amount less than the comparable sized Waroo, these things are cheap, really cheap. Some of the comments from the locals during our session consisted of things such as "it looks like your flying an argos kite" "is that a toy kite?" So... its not the most amazing looking kite but does it fly like it comes out of a catalogue?
Does it ####!
Setting the kite up is easy, there is a very limited amount of bridle with only one small pulley on each side of the kite, for attaching the back lines there are two knots, one for more power/bar pressure and one for less power/bar pressure - A monkey could set this thing up safely!
I used Greg's assistance for my first launch, you never know what to expect when flying something new for the first time, he lets go, it goes to the zenith very smoothly without a fight.
At first the kite doesnt really feel that much, its there, and its direct on the bar but with the kite fully depowered on the bar its sitting straight above my head with so little pull, I could be having a picnic and flying a one liner at this point!
So I grab my landboard, the wind is around 15mph and I am on the demo Kahoona 9.5m with the 50cm redline bar, I will say this now and probably end up repeating myself later, this thing is GRUNTY. After a whole day session I can say it has the same low end as the current 11m Waroo.
I do a tack across the hill, Its simple, fast and I easily make good progress upwind without giving it any thought (I have been landboarding a while now but some kites are just easier than others - this is one of them)
The kite is grunty from the first revolution of my wheels and quickly builds power, the kite sits very well in the sky and you can effortlessly blast around all day with very little effort. There is a steady pressure on the bar with this kite, its between the Waroo and Depower foils (If you have flown them both?)
So the kite does the basics well, so far it is doing what it says on the tin/bag. Not being used to things actually being as described due to marketing hype and sales talk myself and Greg decide to pick on it for a couple of hours.
We smash it into the ground (Sorry Stu, this thing is FILTHY now) board across the field with random safety pulls, chickenloop releases and bar drops and the thing wont give in! One of the reasons I got this out this weekend was to test the relaunch on land, Stu wanted to know if it was as effortless as it was in water out in Egypt, the question being, will it reverse launch by pulling the back lines?
The answer was yes, but why would you, don't touch the lines just pull the bar in and the kite rolls over on the spot, it did this most places in the window without getting halfway and then sliding all over the place which you get with some kites increases wear and heightening the risk of damage to the leading edge. You will see this in my video but need to fly/crash one to believe how ridiculously easy the kite relaunches.
What would I change?
Without taking away from what the kite is and what it stands for, you can't do much with it but please... GIVE US A STOPPER BALL
You could do alot of things; add more reinforcements, make it better looking, use Dacron, but again these would make it more expensive - and the Waroo and Nemi are still there for that.
So in all, Its not just another kite in my opinion, its great! it is super easy to use, very stable, exceedingly grunty, fly's well unhooked, it jumps, it floats, I would give it to my girlfriend without risking her life and could pass it to a local freestyler and they would both be equally as happy.
If your thinking of swapping your quiver, adding to it or getting into the sport, Add this to your wish list!
Click on the video below and watch it in full HD glory!