Just a question - a mate of mine is a North fan but is now sorting out problems with valves, bladders and fins ??
Im an F-one fan and have had none of his issues boards or kites ??
His fins on 2 nuggets are trashed - and not from being run aground - lots of stress fractures ?? crap fins Im thinking ??
Is this common with the North Nugget ?? seems the fins are crap@!@

Don't ride north
But they must be doing something right , my local beach had maybe 15/18 kites up yesterday/ today
All north
1 flexifoil
1 ss rally
1 switch
It's not cost as they are up there
Performance? Not for me, apart from rebel
Colours/

I have 3 NEO north 2015 and have no issues. I will buy North gear again. Also I have never had any issue with Naish, Ozone, Slingshot, Liquid force and flysurfer kites Sometime we get lemons and it could be any brand. Or if is was used kite the previous owner didn;t look after his gear. cheers

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Lambie said..
Just a question - a mate of mine is a North fan but is now sorting out problems with valves, bladders and fins ??
Im an F-one fan and have had none of his issues boards or kites ??
His fins on 2 nuggets are trashed - and not from being run aground - lots of stress fractures ?? crap fins Im thinking ??
Is this common with the North Nugget ?? seems the fins are crap@!@

Hi Lambie,
Bummer to hear your mate is having issues with his North Kit.
Best thing to do is see your local North Dealer or shoot me a PM message and we can get him sorted.
Happy Days.NKB

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NKBAUS said..

Lambie said..
Just a question - a mate of mine is a North fan but is now sorting out problems with valves, bladders and fins ??
Im an F-one fan and have had none of his issues boards or kites ??
His fins on 2 nuggets are trashed - and not from being run aground - lots of stress fractures ?? crap fins Im thinking ??
Is this common with the North Nugget ?? seems the fins are crap@!@

Hi Lambie,
Bummer to hear your mate is having issues with his North Kit.
Best thing to do is see your local North Dealer or shoot me a PM message and we can get him sorted.
Happy Days.NKB

Can't comment on North kites however their boards are pretty crap. It seems the paint job is not only to make them pretty, it usually hides a very poor craftmanship....

Sorry to hear you've had a bad experience with a North Board.
We are one of the worlds biggest kiteboard manufacturers and our workmanship defects are the lowest level in the industry.
If your having issues, again your local north dealer will be more then happy to help.

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NKBAUS said..
Sorry to hear you've had a bad experience with a North Board.
We are one of the worlds biggest kiteboard manufacturers and our workmanship defects are the lowest level in the industry.
If your having issues, again your local north dealer will be more then happy to help.

Well you haven't been "more than happy to help".... Even though I had a report from a professional repairer, you guys did not even want to have a look at it.

Many e-mails were exchanged and to my surprise I also got accidentally cc'd on an e-mail between the Australian Rep and his boss where they were calling me a C**t!!!!

Great customer service approach.


As far as I am concerned there won't be a North product in my quiver ever again....

Bugger...no excuses for the email, that sucks...

But livit were you being a 'cu#t'? Seems you got an axe to grind given you jumped into this stupid thread.

Worked with the north juggernaut system on warranties before, it can be slow, but they've always come through eventually.

Maybe I wasn't being a cu#T about it, who knows?

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eppo said..
Bugger...no excuses for the email, that sucks...

But livit were you being a 'cu#t'? Seems you got an axe to grind given you jumped into this stupid thread.

Worked with the north juggernaut system on warranties before, it can be slow, but they've always come through eventually.

Maybe I wasn't being a cu#T about it, who knows?

There will be always 2 sides of the story.

To summarise, a board (out of warranty) was taken for what was supposed to be a simple fin box repair. After investigation and extensive sanding, the repairer calls and says that the damages are due to a manufacturing defect, the worst he has ever seen. He sent some photos as he reckoned the manufacturer should take responsibility for letting this board out of their factory.

The following step was to forward the photos to NKB, passed the contact details of the repairer for them to discuss the issue. The whole time they were saying that it was out of warranty and therefore nothing will be done. To them there was no defect at all.

Eventually they offered a 20% discount on a new board (which I would probably get anyway at that time of the year). Funny thing is why should I get a new North board if their construction is rubbish?????

Again that sucks. Boards...especially the SB's, such a damn grey area hey.

I don't think it's a grey area mate
Surfboard from the local shaper = $750
Kite surfboard from north = $1200
See when you pay nearly double the price of a normal surfboard for a "kite surfboard" you would expect it to be fit for purpose otherwise how can they justify the price difference if it isn't for the super dooper beefed up kite construction..........

warranties on the SB's are a grey area. Regardless of brand. Well they are a headache for retailers I know that much at least.

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eppo said..
warranties on the SB's are a grey area. Regardless of brand. Well they are a headache for retailers I know that much at least.

They are a grey area but they shoudn't really.... As Prawndog pointed out, they charge 40% more than a local shaper so you would assume the product is "fit for purpose".

What is even worst about it is the stupid mentality from the people behind North who don't give a **** about their clients....

Having seen that particular surfboard stripped out, I would be surprise if the cost of manufacturing one of these in China is more than $300.

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Livit said..

eppo said..
warranties on the SB's are a grey area. Regardless of brand. Well they are a headache for retailers I know that much at least.

They are a grey area but they shoudn't really.... As Prawndog pointed out, they charge 40% more than a local shaper so you would assume the product is "fit for purpose".

What is even worst about it is the stupid mentality from the people behind North who don't give a **** about their clients....

Having seen that particular surfboard stripped out, I would be surprise if the cost of manufacturing one of these in China is more than $300.

...lol...fair enough. Pretty sure just about every item you are wearing of using right now suffers the same modern manufacturing and distribution fate I'm afraid. Gotta love globalization.

By the way I'm all for using local shapers by the way....I wouldn't buy a mass produced SB after what I've seen can be done by local craftsmen. From any brand.

just saying the warranty on SB's...can open a whole can of worms to be exploited by the less honorable types. Grey area tries to be eliminated for this reason and sometimes the honest Joe gets ass rammed. Always making rules for the 0.1% of wankers out there. This might cheer ya up...




Tarnishing a whole company (and a very successful one) on your one experience is pretty 'narrow' Livit (But I get your angst man, totally). Just trying to add some balance that's all.

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Lambie said..
Just a question - a mate of mine is a North fan but is now sorting out problems with valves, bladders and fins ??
Im an F-one fan and have had none of his issues boards or kites ??
His fins on 2 nuggets are trashed - and not from being run aground - lots of stress fractures ?? crap fins Im thinking ??
Is this common with the North Nugget ?? seems the fins are crap@!@

Anything North is crap. End of story

Oh and their pumps are **** too. I bought one new from Marvin here, and not blaming him, but the build quality is crap. It lasted 5months and kaput! Went back to simple yellow pumps from Anaconda and no more problems since

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eppo said..


Tarnishing a whole company (and a very successful one) on your one experience is pretty 'narrow' Livit (But I get your angst man, totally). Just trying to add some balance that's all.

I reckon they are doing a pretty good job at tarnishing their own reputation... I mean calling a client a "cu#t" even though that client was not supposed to receive the message just shows the mentality behind the brand, doesn't it?

Not too sure what you are trying to prove here really? I am talking about facts and the overall experience dealing with North. As a disclaimer you should probably mention that you get deals through your local North supplier, shouldn't you?

From your multiple reviews I would guess that you usually don't hang onto your gear for too long, right? Others keep it for a while and their description of "fit for purpose" might be getting a few years of use of their favorite toys.

Now if you want to know what I am talking about, have a look at those pics:

Seriously, how can this pass a quality control?

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Loftywinds said...

Lambie said..
Just a question - a mate of mine is a North fan but is now sorting out problems with valves, bladders and fins ??
Im an F-one fan and have had none of his issues boards or kites ??
His fins on 2 nuggets are trashed - and not from being run aground - lots of stress fractures ?? crap fins Im thinking ??
Is this common with the North Nugget ?? seems the fins are crap@!@

Anything North is crap. End of story

I wouldn't say that buddy I do have a set of north kites and they seem like a beautiful kites so far. Perhaps it's just the product support / back up, which does seem like NKB is trying to help bridge the gap with. I guess kite surfing is a new sport and kite companies are trying to figure it out along the way. What I would like to see tho is if a company is charging premium prices for a product they back it up with premium support and warranty services.

Bummer to hear they suck with there warranties.

I've done a fare few repairs and it looks like it might have been fixed with polyester resin, when the board is epoxy?
Tends to eat away the foam and glass layers like that.

Did you buy it new?

Go local, easy fix.

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Livit said..

NKBAUS said..

Lambie said..
Just a question - a mate of mine is a North fan but is now sorting out problems with valves, bladders and fins ??
Im an F-one fan and have had none of his issues boards or kites ??
His fins on 2 nuggets are trashed - and not from being run aground - lots of stress fractures ?? crap fins Im thinking ??
Is this common with the North Nugget ?? seems the fins are crap@!@

Hi Lambie,
Bummer to hear your mate is having issues with his North Kit.
Best thing to do is see your local North Dealer or shoot me a PM message and we can get him sorted.
Happy Days.NKB

Can't comment on North kites however their boards are pretty crap. It seems the paint job is not only to make them pretty, it usually hides a very poor craftmanship....

yeah i fully had one my north boards become badly delaminated. rather then contact the warranty team i just opted to fix it myself. when i opened it up a bit more to clean it all out properly so the resin would affix properly i discovered the whole core of the north board was just wet spaghetti with that stinky parmeson cheese, couldnt believe the craftsmanship! who do they think they are? an italian resturant?

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JOYRIDER said..
Bummer to hear they suck with there warranties.

I've done a fare few repairs and it looks like it might have been fixed with polyester resin, when the board is epoxy?
Tends to eat away the foam and glass layers like that.

Did you buy it new?

Go local, easy fix.

This pics are before fixing. No prior repairs on this board.... What you see is the craftmanship under the paint, pieces of dry laminate came off during the sanding process.

Apparently North qualify this as "normal wear and tear"!

Well I'll throw in my one person experience against your one person experience. Have been all north since I started 4 years ago and kit has been brilliant as has the local dealer in Gero.

Strawpolls of 1 are just legendary

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Dave Whettingsteel said..
Well I'll throw in my one person experience against your one person experience. Have been all north since I started 4 years ago and kit has been brilliant as has the local dealer in Gero.

Strawpolls of 1 are just legendary

Surely a lot of riders are happy with their North products however you really get to see the values of of a brand when something goes wrong. Some brand deal with it rather in a professional manner, others just don't give a **** and treat their customer the same way...

Note that this particular issue was undetectable and as I said at the beginning, the board was taken to the repairer for what was supposed to be a simple fin box repair. That was until we discovered the truth behind it....

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Livit said..

Dave Whettingsteel said..
Well I'll throw in my one person experience against your one person experience. Have been all north since I started 4 years ago and kit has been brilliant as has the local dealer in Gero.

Strawpolls of 1 are just legendary

Surely a lot of riders are happy with their North products however you really get to see the values of of a brand when something goes wrong. Some brand deal with it rather in a professional manner, others just don't give a **** and treat their customer the same way...

Note that this particular issue was undetectable and as I said at the beginning, the board was taken to the repairer for what was supposed to be a simple fin box repair. That was until we discovered the truth behind it....

maybe the repairer ****ed it and turned around and blamed north hahahaha seriously

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Livit said..

eppo said..


Tarnishing a whole company (and a very successful one) on your one experience is pretty 'narrow' Livit (But I get your angst man, totally). Just trying to add some balance that's all.

I reckon they are doing a pretty good job at tarnishing their own reputation... I mean calling a client a "cu#t" even though that client was not supposed to receive the message just shows the mentality behind the brand, doesn't it?

Not too sure what you are trying to prove here really? I am talking about facts and the overall experience dealing with North. As a disclaimer you should probably mention that you get deals through your local North supplier, shouldn't you?

From your multiple reviews I would guess that you usually don't hang onto your gear for too long, right? Others keep it for a while and their description of "fit for purpose" might be getting a few years of use of their favorite toys.

Now if you want to know what I am talking about, have a look at those pics:

Seriously, how can this pass a quality control?

What year is that board and when did it happen?

It looks like a 2012? maybe with the bamboo finish and black rails????

surf boards just don't seem to be made to last, like guys are happy with 2-3 years out a board while I'm sitting here thing id love a kteboard that never perished with age. Is there such a thing? I get it will be heavier but I don't really think that is a top priority with kite boards.

Hey Livit, got to go with you on this one. Poor craftsmanship is easy to cover up under a layer or two of paint and from how it looks in this pic you have scored yourself a "Monday morning" job when the Thai shaper was suffering a cracker hangover from a big night on the Singha's. Warranty from what I understand (having watched many episodes of Checkout on ABC) is not necessarily for the exact period of time that is stated. If your washing machine craps itself on day 366 of a 1 year warranty, it doesn't mean you're not covered. From what I understand you can go down the pathway of phoning the Consumer protection group but your claim needs to be within a "reasonable time" and not something that has been slapped around. This process could a pain in the @rse though and is what manufacturers rely on as people usually can't be bothered.

Got to agree with Eppo on going a local shaper if you can access one. Epoxy is a great material...cheap, strong and easy to work with (in production) but never overlook the qualities of good old fashioned glass board.

Having said that, here are some pics of my "Nugget" that I had built late last year (have posted this pics before). All glass (and lots of it) with some carbon strips over the heal areas, and being glass you can see that this is pure craftsmanship as I can see all the way through to the foam and stringers. Plus, if I damage it the repair process is easy. By the way, this Nugget didn't cost me $1300 like the mass produced versions.

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Livit said...

eppo said..


Tarnishing a whole company (and a very successful one) on your one experience is pretty 'narrow' Livit (But I get your angst man, totally). Just trying to add some balance that's all.

I reckon they are doing a pretty good job at tarnishing their own reputation... I mean calling a client a "cu#t" even though that client was not supposed to receive the message just shows the mentality behind the brand, doesn't it?

Not too sure what you are trying to prove here really? I am talking about facts and the overall experience dealing with North. As a disclaimer you should probably mention that you get deals through your local North supplier, shouldn't you?

From your multiple reviews I would guess that you usually don't hang onto your gear for too long, right? Others keep it for a while and their description of "fit for purpose" might be getting a few years of use of their favorite toys.

Now if you want to know what I am talking about, have a look at those pics:

Seriously, how can this pass a quality control?

So it came out of the factory like that,
Shocking IMHO,
But not as bad as your mates eye sight

I did a fin box on my 2011 Nugget and was advised by Darren to have it repaired at Katanas, which I did. (Excellent repair)
When I picked up the board, the shaper whose name escapes me, was perplexed and confused as to what seemed like
the original fin box had its flange ground off before assembling on the board. He had never seen this before and had no explanation
why they would do it. I know very little about board building but I kept the fin box out of interest.
I can't say it really bothered me being the noob I was and I flew Rebels and Evos
for my first three years. Replaced just about all the valves, depower lines every season,
Maybe I'm a bit simpletonic, but none of that really bothered me in regards to the brand.
I own a 2015 Nugget now so maybe I haven't learnt a lesson yet.
And I now fly Ozone and equally happy.….......until that leading edge opens up.
Just my experience.

That email needs to find its way across the CEOs desk.
PS Australia is the only Country in the world where you call your mates " c#nts"........and c#nts "mate".

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Livit said..

eppo said..


Tarnishing a whole company (and a very successful one) on your one experience is pretty 'narrow' Livit (But I get your angst man, totally). Just trying to add some balance that's all.

I reckon they are doing a pretty good job at tarnishing their own reputation... I mean calling a client a "cu#t" even though that client was not supposed to receive the message just shows the mentality behind the brand, doesn't it?

Not too sure what you are trying to prove here really? I am talking about facts and the overall experience dealing with North. As a disclaimer you should probably mention that you get deals through your local North supplier, shouldn't you?

From your multiple reviews I would guess that you usually don't hang onto your gear for too long, right? Others keep it for a while and their description of "fit for purpose" might be getting a few years of use of their favorite toys.

Now if you want to know what I am talking about, have a look at those pics:

Seriously, how can this pass a quality control?

no denying that's a cluster Fck of a job in those pics.

No denying getting called a cnt on an email is unprofessional and poor form.

No denying the warranty process on reasoning seems suss (based on your account of events).

But I've been through a few and seen plenty of warranties handled well with good Intentions and outcomes.


so what I am trying to achieve was pretty clear on the last line of my previous post.

...I wish I got 'deals' through my local north guy. Ive done multiple reviews because I used to try and fly everything I could get my hands on purely for interest sake...ridden far more than I've reviewed because if I think something is **** I don't write anything. Anyhow you got personal then...


...and why get personal livit to try and make a point (Albeit total bull**** information). Is this how you your communication eventually escalates?

Does it escalate to a point someone might be inclined to call you a cu$t In a private email? Just hypothesising...

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eppo said..
Does it escalate to a point someone might be inclined to call you a cu$t In a private email? Just hypothesising...

Is that why NORTHKBA suddenly went quite?