Your first kit
You are riding upwind, getting back to where you started and sorting yourself out when it goes wrong. The next thing you want is your own gear. This is a guide to the two decisions that cost the most and change your riding the most — the kites and the board.
This one is about kites and boards
Not because the rest does not matter, but because we have written about the rest already. A harness and a wetsuit are fitted to you: they are chosen on your body and your comfort, and the guides below will get you there faster than we can here.
Kites and boards are a different kind of decision. They are chosen against your weight, the wind where you actually ride and what you want to be doing in a year, and they are where nearly all of the money goes. Get them right and your first quiver will last you years. Get them wrong and you will be selling them by spring.
Still need the body kit? Read our harness guide and our wetsuit guide — and if you are wondering how thick a suit you need through a Channel winter, we covered that season by season too. Or go straight to the harnesses and wetsuits we stock.
Kites: three struts for most people, five if you are heavier
Buy two kites, and three if you can stretch to it. One kite sounds like the careful way to start and it is actually the frustrating one: a single size turns most of the season into days that are too light or too windy to go out on, and the whole reason you learned this was to get on the water. Two sizes roughly cover our wind here. Three cover it properly.
The first fork in the road is not the brand. It is how many struts the kite has.
Three struts: the all-rounder
A three-strut kite carries less frame, so it is lighter, quicker through the window, easier to relaunch and it drifts better when the lines go slack. It is the more forgiving thing to learn on and the more enjoyable thing to ride on an ordinary day. For most riders buying a first kite, this is the one.
Eleveight RS V10
The kite we put more first-time buyers on than any other. Predictable through the whole window, easy to relaunch, and it does not punish a sloppy input while you are still building the habit.
North Reach
A delta hybrid with a lot of low-end for its size, which makes it a strong light-wind choice on a beach like ours. Happy being parked while you work something out.
Harlem Thrive V2
Harlem’s benchmark three-strut, and a genuinely light kite in the hands. Turns quickly, sits where you put it, and has more performance in reserve than a first-season rider will use.
Five struts: heavier riders, and anyone with jumping in mind
The extra struts do one job, and they do it well: they hold the shape of the canopy when it is loaded. A three-strut kite carries more of that load in the fabric itself, so under a heavy rider or a hard gust it flexes and deforms a little, and some of the power spills out of it rather than arriving at you.
Five struts keep the profile where the designer put it. Two things follow from that. The first is more pull for the same size — which is exactly what a heavier rider is short of, and why a 90kg rider often gets on better with a five-strut kite than with a bigger three-strut one.
The second is predictability, and it matters more than it sounds. A kite that holds its shape pulls the same way every time you send it, so the jump you get is the jump you expected. That is why big-air kites are built with five struts in the first place, and it is why learning to jump on one is so much less alarming: you are not also learning what the kite is going to do differently this time.
Eleveight Stratos+
Built as a big-air kite and it feels like one. The frame stays stiff when a 35-knot gust arrives instead of fluttering, which is the whole point of the extra struts.
North Orbit
North’s big-air and freeride kite, and the one with the widest useful range of the three. A sensible five-strut first kite rather than a specialist one.
Harlem Peak
A dedicated jumping kite, and the one to look at if boosting is the reason you are buying. Very stable, very high, and it wants some wind to show you why.
It is not purely about weight. If you already know that jumping is what you want to be doing, a five-strut kite will get you there sooner even if you are not heavy — and if you are on the lighter side and want a kite that is fun on a marginal day, three struts will serve you better even if you do eventually want to boost.
Those six are where we would start the conversation, not the whole shelf.
Tell us your weight and where you ride and we will narrow six down to two.
What we would actually put you on
We carry a lot of Eleveight, and there is a reason for it that has nothing to do with marketing. They hold up. The materials take being used rather than looked after, the bladders and valves are sensible to service, and when something does go wrong we can get the part without a three-week wait. A first kite spends its life being packed away on a windy beach by someone still learning how to do it, and that kind of durability is worth more to you than the last few percent of performance.
North and Harlem are both worth your attention if you already know you are going to look after your kit. They are premium brands and they feel it — a bit more performance, a bit more refinement, and a bit less tolerance for being left wet in the bag. If you are the sort of person who rinses and dries things, you will get more out of them.
What we will not tell you is that the badge matters more than the size. It does not, and it is not close. The correct size of a sensible kite beats the wrong size of an exciting one every single session.
You do not need to buy it all from one brand
It is one of the most common assumptions we hear, and it costs people money. Almost everything in kitesurfing is compatible with almost everything else. It just needs pulling together by someone who knows what goes with what — which is most of what we do.
And there is a real gain in it, not just a saving. The board you like riding and the footpads that suit your feet very often come from different brands. There is no reason at all to ride pads that give you sore arches for two seasons because they came in the box. Most twin tips share a standard insert pattern, so swapping is usually straightforward — bring the board in and we will check yours before you buy anything.
The same is true of kites, and this is where it gets genuinely useful. Brands and models are good at different things, and they are good at different things in different sizes. Plenty of riders here deliberately mix. A 9m Harlem Peak for going high when it is properly windy, and a 12m North Reach for mellow, light-wind riding, is a far better two-kite quiver for a lot of people than two sizes of the same model would be.
Bars mix too — but there is one thing on a bar that does have to line up with the kite, and it is not the badge. The next section explains it.
What that actually looks like
Two riders we could describe in our sleep, because we sell to both of them every season. Neither is a prescription — change the beach, the rider or how often they get out and the numbers move — but they show the shape of the decision better than a size chart does. Notice that both mix brands, and both mix a three-strut with a five-strut. That is not us being clever; it is what actually leaves the shop.
The two-kite quiver: 9m and 12m
- 12m North Reach — the everyday kite. Three struts, light in the air and full of low-end, which at this weight turns a lot of marginal afternoons into real sessions.
- 9m Eleveight Stratos+ — the windy-day kite, and the one she learns to jump on. Five struts, so it holds its shape and sends the same way every time instead of surprising her.
- Board: Harlem Launch, 135 — forgiving, easy to get planing and not so big it becomes a handful when it does finally blow.
Two sizes, two brands, two types of kite. She can ride almost every day Greatstone gives her, and nothing in the bag is a compromise she will resent in a year.
The three-kite quiver: 8m, 11m and 14m
- 14m Eleveight RS V10 — the light-wind kite, and the one that stops a heavier rider sitting out half the summer.
- 11m North Reach — the everyday kite. A three-strut on purpose: the low-end grunt is what gets 95kg moving on a mellow day.
- 8m Harlem Peak — the strong-wind kite and the big-air kite. Five struts, so it keeps its profile under load rather than deforming and spilling power.
- Board: Eleveight Process V9, 144 × 44 — the biggest in the range, which is exactly what you want at this weight: early planing and a lot of forgiveness.
Three sizes, three brands, both types. This is the mix-and-match argument in one bag — each kite is the better tool for its own job, and no single brand does all three ends as well.
If you recognise yourself in neither — which is most people — that is exactly the conversation to come and have. Message us your weight, how often you get out and what you want to be doing in a year, and we will sketch your version of the above. It takes about ten minutes and it is the cheapest part of the whole process.
The bar is the piece we would never buy used
We will happily sell you a second-hand kite. We will talk you out of a second-hand bar nearly every time, because the bar is your safety system. The quick release, the above-bar safety line, the depower and the chicken loop are the things you reach for on the worst day you will have, and all of them are wear items.
The problem is that none of that wear is visible. Lines stretch unevenly, so a kite that flew straight for the last owner now sits crooked. Release mechanisms stiffen with salt and age. A bar can look immaculate and still not release cleanly under load, and you find that out at exactly the wrong moment.
New does not mean same-brand, though. You do not have to fly a North bar on a North kite, and plenty of people here happily do not. Bars and kites mix perfectly well — as long as one thing lines up.
The bit that has to match: the V
Look up your front lines from the chicken loop and you will see them split into two. Where that split sits is the V, and it is not the same on every system. Some run a low V, splitting close to the bar; others run a high V, splitting much further up towards the kite.
A kite designed around one will not fly properly on the other. Put a low-V bar on a kite that wants a high V — or the reverse — and the steering goes vague, the bar pressure is wrong and the depower stops doing what you expect. It is not a matter of taste and you cannot tell by looking at a photograph of either one.
So mix the brands if it suits you. Just check the V before you buy, and that is genuinely easier to do with us than on your own: tell us what kite you are flying, or bring it in, and we will tell you which bars will work with it and which will not.
Bars start around £400 and run to about £790, depending on brand and how much adjustment you want in one.
Second-hand and ex-demo kites
This is usually the smartest way to build a first quiver, and we would rather you did it than stretched to something new that you are then frightened of. We nearly always have used and ex-demo kites in the shop.
Ex-demo is the pick of it. Those are kites that have been out with us, so we know precisely how many hours they have done, who flew them and how they were packed away — which is more than you will ever know about a kite from a classified ad. They are usually a season old, they have been looked after by people who do this for a living, and they are a fraction of new.
Kites do not really wear out from being ridden. They get killed by how they are stored. One packed away damp, left in the sun, or folded with sand in it can look almost new and be close to finished: the fabric goes soft, the seams give up, and it fails on the water rather than in the bag. That is the whole reason provenance is worth paying a little for.
So if you are buying used anywhere else, two rules:
- Never buy kit you have not seen. Photographs hide exactly the things that matter. If the seller will not let you look at it properly, walk away.
- Get someone to look with you. Bring it to us, or send us pictures of the leading edge, the seams, the bridles and the bar before you hand over any money. We will tell you honestly what we think it is worth.
The used rack is not on the website. It changes week to week and most of it never gets listed, so the only way to know what is on the shelf is to ask us or come in. Tell us your weight and what you are after and we will tell you what we have got. We also take kites in part exchange through the trade-in scheme, so when you do outgrow your first setup it has somewhere to go.
The used rack changes weekly and is never all online — a message is genuinely the fastest way to find out.
Boards: the size is where it starts, not where it ends
Size is the first number anyone gives you, and it is a fair one. More surface area means earlier planing, easier water starts and far more forgiveness in light wind, which is what your first season asks for. If you are torn between two lengths right now, take the bigger one.
But two boards of the same length can ride completely differently, and once you have ridden a few you will care about these far more than the number on the sticker.
None of this reads well on a spec sheet, which is why we would rather you came and stood on a few. Five minutes of having them explained side by side will tell you more than an afternoon of reading, and it is free.
Boards start around £450, and most first boards land somewhere between £530 and £700. The carbon ones go well past that, and there is no hurry to get there.
Tell us your weight and your usual wind and we will give you a length.
What a sensible first quiver looks like
Not a package and not a shopping list — just the shape of the thing, so you know roughly what you are aiming at and what it will take to get there.
Why we will ask what you weigh
Kite size is not a preference, it is arithmetic: your weight, the wind strength and how much of it actually reaches the water where you ride. An 80kg rider and a 60kg rider on the same beach on the same day want genuinely different kites, and a size that is perfect at Greatstone can be wrong somewhere gusty and offshore.
That is the whole reason we would rather you came and asked. We ride this beach, so when you tell us what you weigh, how often you can get down here and what you want to be doing in a year, the answer is based on something. That conversation is free and you do not have to buy anything at the end of it.
If you want to understand the wind here yourself — which forecast model to trust, what the tide does to it, and which directions are safe — we wrote a full guide to the Greatstone forecast and kite sizing.
What you get that a website cannot give you
It leaves here set up
Lines equalised, bar tuned to the kite, pads set to your stance, and someone walking you through the release on your own gear rather than on a rental. A box from a warehouse gives you none of that, and the first session on a badly set up kite is the one that puts people off.
We price match
Found the same current-season item in stock at another UK shop for less? Send us the link and we will do our best to match it. The full terms are on our price match promise.
Your old kit is worth something
Tell us what you have and we will give you a figure against your next one through the trade-in scheme. It is usually the cheapest way to move up a size — and it is where a lot of our used rack comes from.
We are still here afterwards
Warranty claims, repairs, a bar you cannot set up, a kite that does not feel right — bring it in. We are on the same beach you ride, and we would rather sort it in person than through a courier. Want to sharpen up your riding? The school is right here too.
Before you spend, talk to us
Tell us what you weigh, where you are riding, how often, and whether you want to be jumping by next summer. We will tell you what to buy — including when the answer is a used kite instead of a new one. No pressure, no obligation, and we will happily talk you out of something.
Prices on this page are rounded guides for the kit we stock and change with season, model and size — the product pages carry the real ones. Not sure where to start? Just ask us.
