Peter Hart has been over in Ireland putting his Kode through its paces, but what does the guru think of his new board?
Donegal, as usual, has come up with its usual wild mix of wind and waves. 40 knots and 7m, swell followed 2 days later by 15 knots side-off and perfect 4 ft glassy faces.
The Irish wave tour came to town last weekend; and as I met up with fellow team riders Timo and Finn Mullen, unprompted and open-mouthed, we all chorused, “what about the new Kodes then?!”
…the speed of a single fin, the drive of a quad and the looseness of a twin…
I used my new 92 for the first time the week before and couldn’t honestly believe what I was feeling – so fast and yet so ‘snappy.’ I was making sections that would normally wipe me with cries of “I knew I was good!” As Finn put it, the new Kodes have the speed of a single fin, the drive of a quad and the looseness of a twin, all bundled into one glorious bright orange package.
All the range have that quality but for me being 88kg, the 92 has brought a new dimension to the sketchy days and evened out the playing field for the bigger guys. Quite often the big boards we need to get out into position on light wind days are a bit stiff and clunky on the wave face. Last week I sailed the Magheroarty reef. It was offshore and really light inshore but howling further out. I put a 4.7 on the 92 and it worked brilliantly feeling like a board 10 trs less.
The problem for Svein and the development team will be trying to improve on perfection!
