Nobile Kiteboarding T5 10m 2013
Reviews / Kites
39,091
At A Glance
The Nobile T5 has been in the line up for some time now, it has always remained an easy to use freeride kite and this year that brief is no different. It’s a 3 strut bridled affair with a reasonably open profile and a medium aspect chord depth. The rear lines offer a direct connection and there are quite a few attachment points for the front bridle. The construction is of a light nature, as opposed to heavy duty, Kevlar tips on the struts and Dacron framing around the main canopy offer good reinforcement. New for this year they have tweaked the profile, redesigned the area around the leading edge and flattened the wingtips. The lines on the bridle have also been made thinner, which is no doubt why the load has been spread across more attachment points.
The Bar
The Nobile KISS bar has always been a staff favourite, comfy to hold and well thought out it utilises some clever ideas that are both functional and easy to use. The chicken loop release is simple and releases easily under load, there is an above the bar trim system that uses a webbing pull/pull set up and the lines can be attached to the outer, or inner attachment points on the bar to increase it’s effective size should you desire. It all comes in a neat package that feels great in the hands.
In The Air
The T5 looks quite big for a 10m compared to some other brands, the very wide wingtips combine with the medium aspect chord depth to give it an impressive surface area. And it certainly develops lots of low-end power in the sky; we were using this kite and feeling fully powered when other riders were on 12’s and 14’s. The bridling and profile shape combine to offer plenty of depower though and while the top end may not be as impressive as the bottom end this kite still has a very good range on it. We particularly enjoyed the direct nature of the T5, despite it’s low-end power and size it was very responsive in the air and behaved impeccably in terms of rider input. Upwind was very good, the adjustments to the leading edge have improved things here and in gusty conditions the kite also felt at home. Jumping was great fun, the hangtime the T5 offers is insane, it is such a big platform to jump under it offers loads of float and airtime on the way down. Unhooked the kite behaves very well and you don’t need to trim it too much in order to get the right set up. The fast and responsive nature of the handling would also make this an excellent light wind wave kite. It would arguably replace a 12m in many wave riders quiver.
Overall
Good looking, stable, responsive and bucket loads of low down power the T5 is sure to impress just about anyone who flies it, beginners, intermediates and experts alike will all get something out of this great all round machine.
Videos
This review was in Issue 39 of IKSURFMAG.
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By Rou Chater
Rou has been kiting since the sports inception and has been working as an editor and tester for magazines since 2004. He started IKSURFMAG with his brother in 2006 and has tested hundreds of different kites and travelled all over the world to kitesurf. He's a walking encyclopedia of all things kite and is just as passionate about the sport today as he was when he first started!
