13m Kite REVIEW

Prima Donna2 First Impressions.....

Arrived with it blowing about 18mph, cross-on, so the 13m was the first out of the bag.

Nice to see the new V-shaped 5th line pre-fitted with the knots in the right places and conveniently tagged for high/low wind options. Rigged the kite in low wind mode, with the new CBS Evo bar. Not much new here from the old 3+1 except the higher 'V' in the front lines. One nice touch is the small loops spliced into the centre line for the 5th to pass through. The higher V is supposed to help stabilise the new swept-tip designs, and once in the air you can see how - it's almost semi-sle like the way the LE is held by the two V's of the 5th and front lines.

First thing I noticed about the new kite is that it's so easy to self-launch.

Once in the air, the first thing anyone from the old kites would notice is the depower. There's bags of it, yet the power delivery as you pull the bar in is very linear indeed. I'd tried a few of the early bow designs and disliked the on/off delivery, so this was very welcome.

Turning speed is as aggressive as I'd been led to believe, adding to this, I have it rigged on the smaller bar. There's been a lot of emphasis on the PD2 being tuned for faster turning. It is quicker than the old kite for sure when you crank it, but moves around very smoothly on small inputs. I found it to be a good balance, and with the light, but informative bar pressure, it was easy to tell what the kite was up to without having to keep a watchful eye on it.

Looping the kite gives a C kite type surge of forward momentum and it pulls cleanly through the loop. This kite doesn't pivot-turn like some of the bows. I personally like this, having flown C kites almost exclusively.

Boosting is easy, and big, you go higher and the float is very controllable. This a confidence building kite - the wind picked up to 25mph+ and I was quite happy going huge and enjoying the view!

The kite is super-smooth, and extremely stable. You can ride straight at these kites and they'll happily follow you downwind. For wave-riding these are great.
Also very forgiving of mistakes. You can swing underneath, go into transitions too fast and leave the kite behind and it doesn't seem to upset it all.

Unhooked, is again an improvement on the old model. It felt more natural at all levels of depower trim. The 5th line relaunch on the CBS is just as good as ever.

These kites certainly deliver when you send them, but the silky handling really does boost your confidence level. Some will no doubt argue that the raw edge has been lost, but these kite perform better than the old ones with improved handling and safety - in any other world that would certainly be called progress.

The Primadonna continues to occupy the role of 'a kite for all things'. It has a definite c kite feel, coupled with the improved depower from bows. This kite would be a faithful companion on land, snow and water - freestyle, freeride and waves. I'd also recommend it for beginners - esp. the 13. This is a kite you could happily learn on, yet you'd never need to sell irrespective of how good you got.

12 to 15 knots....ish

I never had a kite shop!

JN are a kite brand working for me. No SLE or Bows in thier range, just kites that work. Not for everyone tho