North Nova Wing

The new North Nova wing his the latest wing on the market. Designed by master designer Pat Goodman, the Nova is one hell of a wing. https://www.surffx.com.au/products/north-nova-wing-ding

Hey guys, Jon from Surf FX and we're having a look at the new North Nova foil wing. Pretty excited about these, we've known about them for a while, I had a couple of pre-production samples that we gave a go of and it's really nice to see the production ones but there's quite a few things that they changed from the ones that we had to make it the full production. So you can see here got two colourways got this nice green and a pretty sick black. Pretty easy layout two windows, not too big, it's fine you can just get a glimpse of what's coming through on the other side you don't, you know, if it's too big this material does stretch a bit and then it's also a pain in the butt to fold up because you can't fold through the window if you don't want to crease it. Now pretty cool with these guys because this is one of the first wings where I've seen some extremely technical development stuff come through, coming more through kind of sourced from like the windsurfing sail side of things and you can really start to see it in the bottom, at the very bottom of the wing strut here there is a big radial panel so that distributes a load 45 degree angles to the fibers to get it the maximum stiffness. The real focus on this wing was stiffness and with that comes a response and also you know just durability and toughness because you're using quite stiff materials so that really lends itself to being nice and stable so you got good wind range and then you don't have the draft moving around. So I'll just flip this wing around and have a look at what's going on on the inside. Okay this is the inside of this wing and the first thing you see is a massive join here so what they call that they call it the XLT joint and really to keep it rigid like I said, so having a large diameter tubing is a much more rigid structure and through the connection they even use kevlar to keep it super super tight so you don't have any deviation or any flex so pretty cool to see that coming through on this kind of setup. Again you've got the direction of the material it's all to do with the stiffness to keep it super rigid, you've got two inflate hoses on this massive strut because it just makes it a lot easier to pack it up and to blow it up, get all the air coming in and out nice and quick. Something that my wings didn't have but now the production ones do is this new Y handle so the handles on this wing in general are a multi-layer foam you can feel it inside, inside you've got the very center which is quite a rigid bit of foam and then a softer foam on the outside so you do get a nice positive grip to it. So that Y handle there is nice and long so you can really kind of reach for it blind and and find it and grab something and not just lose it. Really particularly I found that this kind of setup is handy when you're first getting off your board, so you're coming off your knees just standing up you don't have to do the big reach all the way through, you know, if you're you're winging you know what I'm talking about, you've got to reach way under and try to grab it but now you can just grab here, and there, and that handle there allows you to slide down as if you're sliding along say the boom setup and then straight to that handle there, nice easy progression. Now this wing was done, a lot of this focus was done on wave riding, so it's very balanced when you're kind of downwinding or on a wave and that has to do with the general shape of it it's just a nice little V through it and it holds itself up. The front handle is not just a afterthought it is as beefy as the rest of the handles and you've got a big neoprene patch here. That neoprene patch is so when you are wave riding your knuckles aren't dragging against that rougher material, so you've got a nice bit of neoprene so your knuckles aren't getting all torn up on that, pretty cool, so it is definitely a feature of this that it is set up to be held and ridden behind you particularly in the surf so if you're into getting up that stage this is definitely a wing to be looking at. Now canopy shape is held up so this center strut comes off of the canopy and inside we've got a little membrane there to keep it there to maintain that shape so you get the draft locked in here again keeping it rigid, keeping the power up the front you get a lot more control of it, if it's moving around it gets really heavy on the backhand then on the front and the back but this you just want the front to have the power, the draft is up there that's pushing the whole rig forward in the air. This little set up here, having it forward also gives your body a more natural position so when you are just generally riding, say I'm going this way, you're facing the wing now if you have your front hand against the canopy that front arm is going to be further in and then your backhand to sheet in is going to be even more so, so to have the center strut a little bit further forward just allows your body to sit a bit more open which is nice and it just gets your back in a little bit so having the sheeting on the back, just a little bit more leverage on it, bit more comfortable stance, pretty nicely thought out design. So these guys have allowed for harness lines it's not something I use myself but a lot of guys are starting to talk about using harness lines and you do have attachment points if you want to throw a harness line on there. This one here is a five, it's fairly grunty, again a lot of that I think has to do with because it is rigid and it keeps the pressure and draft up the front so everything's driving forward but it's a very very compact setup they're not really long tips they're quite squared off, now something on the tips that they've done durability-wise similar to what they've done on their kites they're all reinforced on the tips so it's just nice and easy when you're just, you know, moving them around it's nice to have a bit more durable setup. So the fabric material, this is very top, it's the same fabric that they use on their kites and being a bit of a wave setup it is nice and heavy duty while maintaining a very very light wing.

I didn't get the little bit about where your hands are, I didn't understand a word you were saying then. Well, when you're out winging. Yeah. So my front hand because that's extended this is closer to me okay. Yeah. If this was further in say if I grab, you know I'm not gonna want to do is grab the hose, it's not the right position, you want to have that front hand a bit further out so you're a bit more squared up on the setup. Okay cool. Does that make sense? If it doesn't make sense it's okay you can just leave a comment below I'll reply to them I always do, I read them I know what you're saying. Okay all good.