GIN Nazca

I thought I would put a review on the Gin Nazca, as surely this kite must win an award for the most under-hyped kite on the market.

I have been riding for 4 years and over that period have owned GK, Cabrinha and North, & Best kites and demo’ed Rev, Nobile 555, Rebel, Vegas, and probably some others. Unfortunately I am an addicted consumer and love trying anything new. I buy my own kites so don’t have any allegiances.

Basics: 12 m kite, one-pump, 5th line safety, leading edge supported through 5th line (not sure what that makes the kite - hybrid??), carbon bar. Bar is small; I think it could be a bit longer as I like quick turns, but it seems OK. Simple safety, nothing mechanical to seize up; maybe a little easy to set off if you bump the cover, but I guess this is better than being hard to release! Bag is good quality with a second bag if you want to leave the struts up. Good pump, blah blah blah...

Build: This kite is up with the best for construction (probably only slightly behind Flexi IMO). Really nicely finished kite with lots of attention to detail, down to a small neoprene cover over the zip on the leading edge. Reinforced leading edge and good protection on scuff points. I tested the strength of the canopy by crashing into some trees and then hot launching through a bush. Not a scratch - couldn’t believe my luck. Probably not a recommended test technique…

Bar and lines: Don’t really know what to say; again good quality, uncluttered design. As I said above I would have liked the bar to be a bit longer but that is personal choice and others seem to be cutting bars down for other brands. Swivel is below the bar so easy to manually un-spin. If the safety is on the 5th line and not suicide it twists up after a few rotations in one direction. This is a little annoying but not a big deal, as it is easy to un-spin or connect to the built-in suicide option. Could do with a larger chicken loop for unhooking as it is a little hard to hook back in, but also note I am average at unhooked riding.

Bag: Good, solid construction; nice back-pack style so easy to carry the 2 meters from my car to the beach. Second bag is a good option if you leave struts up, rather than have a lot of mesh floating around in one bag when you don’t need it.

Flying: This is where it gets harder to describe and to be honest I find all kites now fly well, given a bit of time to adjust to different feels. So I will list the things that made me change (and given not many other people fly these I shouldn’t get too much grief).
•Very stable. Seems to float and correct itself when it is over-flown. Easiest kite I have flown for unhooking (note I am far from good at unhooked stuff).
•Easy to re-launch. Not as easy as a bow, but its not bad and defiantly a lot easier than some other brands I have flown. It doesn’t seem to get itself into too many strange positions and to date has not rolled over itself which is a definite down side of a 5th line. (A justified risk, as I have seen enough 4 lines in death spirals with little that can be done quickly other than release the kite.) For me, I have found the 5th line a great safety, but I am sure others will disagree.
•Rips upwind but always hard to compare to other riders as boards make a lot of difference.
•Jumping: I really enjoy the feeling of being rocketed out of the water combined with the float of a bow style. This is one of the reasons I have gradually gone back to more c style to get that explosive launch. The Nazca delivers it all. Only small downside is it takes a bit more technique than jumping a bow, but well worth the perseverance.
•Loops: This is a great looping kite; keeps very even power during the full turn. The 5th line has a small pulley which allows the line to even the load across the attachment points to the leading edge and according to the blurb, increases the torque during the turn. I don’t know if this is true but it sure turns nicely.

If you are looking for a kite that has the powered feel of a c kite with nearly the same de-power of a bow, jumps well, stable (I think it would be good in surf as that seems to have been a design criteria, but can’t comment), direct bar feel, and did I say exciting jumps, it’s well worth demo’ing. I was sufficiently impressed by the solid construction and feel during jumps, loops etc to change over. Give it a go and let me know what you think.

Also a review in KBM (volume 8, November 2007).

i heard they make great wind socks

"PrawnStar let me know if you need more repair tape for your new kite, I wont be needing it based on the quality of the Nazca"

Gold Jerry, Gold.

You trying to make more money selling them doogle. Who was the other Gin out there?