About the brand: North Kiteboarding

North Kiteboarding

North Kiteboarding started back in 2001 (which seems like lifetimes ago now). Ken Miller, David Johnson and later the current CEO Till Eberle. When they began their epic journey, kitesurfing was only a rumour and today they are one of the dominant superpowers of this adrenaline filled sport.   By creating strong kites with a brilliant design, they moved up in the kitesurfing business very quickly. Now that’s the short version of it.  After North Kiteboarding created a new promo video, we got to thinking, where did all this start? Believe it or not, the company started out by making sails for yachts.

The Beginning of North Kiteboarding

Back in 1957 there wasn’t a lot of water sports around, but sailing was very popular. This is where Lowell North began it all. After a few drinks and a chat at the bar, he decided to make his own sail and put his brand on it. North Sails was the brand name and even he will admit, that his first sail wasn’t very good at all. He began developing and design more sails and with the latest technology, he became World Champion. After that North Sails was soon to become the biggest manufacturing company in the world, within sails of course.

Check out: A Complete List of Kitesurfing Brands

Then windsurfing began to become more and more popular, North Sails saw this and imedently began developing these windsurfing sails. They became known for having the fastest and the best performing wave sails in the game. This all happened throughout the 80’s and 90’s, at this time kitesurfing is just a idea/dream.

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During windsurfing hype, the North Sails change management. North Sails was purchased by their own parent company Boards and More back in year 2000.

“Our brand believes that you can’t put a price on imagination and creativity. We rely on our team and their ability to think outside the box.”

North Kiteboarding was now sold before it really had begun, but this wasn’t the end. Still keeping the original brand name, it was a totally different business. This is the time that North Kiteboarding began to grow very fast. Eventually getting just as successful as North Sails in their respective market, through the same mentality of embracing new technology and a similar philosophy.  

Rhino - Rebel - Dice - Ace

This are brands we all now and continue to love. North Kiteboarding keeps leading the industry and delivers top notch kites, boards and other kitesurfing accessories. The early years of 2000 were a race to outpace other companies, and these companies grew at a crazy rate. The race was all about making the most innovative and greatest performance improvements to their product line. Without even knowing it, these ‘pioneers’ were competing not only to be recognized on this new market, but to get a public acceptance of this new sport kitesurfing. North came out with probably their most recognized kites North Rhino and North Vegas in the mid-2000’s but like many other brands at this time, North had a lot of quality issues with their products, mainly because of their desire to lead the innovation for kitesurfing. Then in 2008 they decided to refocus their previous priorities. They moved the whole production center in China to Sri Lanka. They began to standardize some parts in the product line, this created a higher level of quality with greater precision. Here are some of the main North Kiteboarding athletes: Aaron Hadlow Sky Solbach Airton Cozzolino Lopes Tom Court If you are interested in a full detailed description of the North Kiteboarding history, then check out True, a 300 page long book with loads of insights and filled with great pictures.