My Foiling Setup

For the sessions in this video, I was riding the 13.5 m² NXS.

When riding with straps, my setup was a 700 cm² front wing, a 70 cm fuselage, a 190 cm² stabilizer and a 90 cm carbon mast. This is the setup I normally use for both kite foiling and wingfoiling when I'm riding with straps.

My board was the 115 cm SLC, which I also use when riding strapless.

For strapless foiling, I prefer the SSC foil with a 1,000 cm² front wing and a 92 cm aluminium mast. The bigger front wing gives me the low-speed stability and lift I want when riding without straps.

For the bar setup, I use a high V when foiling. For everything else – big air, freestyle or freeride – I normally ride with a low V.

The reason is quite simple: with the high V, the kite feels softer and more forgiving. When you're foiling, this is a huge advantage because you often want the kite to turn very quickly without suddenly delivering a massive amount of power.

A Kite Built From Freeride, Wave & Foil DNA

The NXS is a fusion of the Nexus, Xlite and Section.

All three kites have strong connections to wave riding or foiling, and that makes a lot of sense when you look at what you actually need from a foil kite.

A good foil kite needs to be:

• Very fast through the loop

• Soft and progressive when looping

• Able to maintain continuous power throughout the loop

• Stable in very light wind

• Able to drift without falling out of the sky

• Easy to relaunch when the wind gets light

And these are exactly the characteristics where the NXS really shines.

Soft & Controlled Loops

One of the first things I noticed is how soft the NXS feels when you loop it.

When you're riding a foil, especially strapless, you don't necessarily want a huge amount of power from the kite. You want to be able to control exactly how much power the kite gives you.

This is where the NXS is very different from something like the XR.

The XR produces a lot of power through the loop. That's great when you want aggressive acceleration or big jumps, but when you're riding a foil, that powerful pull can actually work against you.

If you loop an XR while riding strapless, the kite can yank you off the foil before you have time to react.

The NXS is much more controlled.

The loop is fast and powerful enough to give you what you need, but the power delivery is much softer and more progressive. This makes things like landing loops, last-second corrections and small freestyle movements on the foil much easier.

Incredible Drift

For me, drift is probably one of the most important characteristics of a foil kite.

When you're riding downwind, you don't want the kite constantly pulling you back or falling out of the sky. You want it to follow you.

And the NXS does exactly that.

You can ride with the wind, send the kite towards the edge of the window and basically let it follow you without constantly having to correct it.

This becomes especially impressive in very light wind.

Imagine you're riding on a larger foil and you turn hard downwind. Your board accelerates and you can suddenly become faster than the actual wind.

This is normally the moment where a kite can start to lose pressure and fall backwards.

The NXS doesn't - it simply drifts with you.

Once you finish the turn and point in a new direction, the kite catches back up and you can continue riding.

That opens up a completely different style of foiling. You can play with the kite, let it get close to falling, change direction and experiment with different angles without constantly worrying about the kite dropping out of the sky.

Low-Wind Performance

Another major advantage of the NXS is its ability to fly in very little wind.

And this is obviously extremely important for foiling.

Most of the time, we're not foiling in 25 knots. We're foiling when the wind is light and other disciplines are starting to struggle.

The NXS is very comfortable in these conditions.

It stays in the air, keeps moving and doesn't immediately backstall when you lose speed.

And because it drifts so well, you can also get away with much more aggressive downwind turns without immediately losing the kite.

This gives you much more freedom to use the foil's ability to generate speed.

Jumping on a Foil

The NXS is also surprisingly fun when you want to jump with a foil.

One of the things I really like is how far towards the edge of the wind window the kite can travel.

When you're riding upwind, you can position the kite close to the zenith and keep edging harder.

As you continue going upwind, the NXS moves further towards the edge of the wind window and builds up power.

Then you can pull the bar and pop - the result is a very vertical takeoff.

You don't necessarily travel far through the air, but you can get surprisingly high – even when there are only around 10 knots of wind.

Also, the landings are very easy to control because the NXS doesn’t deliver that massive, aggressive pull-through in the loop. This allows you to control the landing much more precisely.

Instead of getting yanked away from the foil, the kite catches you smoothly and progressively.

These little details are what make foiling with the NXS so much fun.

Final Thoughts

I've now tested the NXS for both kite freestyle and kite foiling, and so far I'm really impressed with how versatile it is.

It gave me Freedom, creativity and a whole lot of fun no matter what discipline.