Winning runs deep at North. For decades, top sailors have competed in the America's Cup and at the Olympics using North sails. The brand is at the front on a windsurf board too: Amado Vrieswijk joined North Sails for the 2026 season and became speed foil world champion in May 2026 at La Palme in France, with a top speed of 36.67 knots. On the kite side, though, North had to earn that reputation all over again.

That did not take long. In 2021 New Zealander Marc Jacobs won the Red Bull King of the Air in Cape Town, the best known big air contest in the world. He did it on his 32nd birthday, beating three-time champion Kevin Langeree on the way to the title. For a brand that had only been back for a few seasons, that was an immediate statement. In January 2023 Dutchman Cohan van Dijk followed. He had just switched to North and won the Big Air Kite League in Cape Town straight away, by a margin of just 0.02 points.

North is at the front in the women's field as well. Francesca Maini made history in December 2024 as the first winner of the King of the Air women's division, a category that ran for the first time that year. French rider Capucine Delannoy is the figurehead in waves. She won the strapless big air world title in 2022 and has since taken multiple GKA kite-surf world titles, including in 2022, 2024 and 2025. Sylt has become her regular podium, where tricks like the triple front roll make the difference in heavy North Sea waves.

North does not only compete, it also organises. In 2023 the brand was title sponsor of the King of the Air, with a limited edition North x King of the Air board to mark it. And when the Red Bull Megaloop was held in Noordwijk in 2025, ten minutes from North's head office, Nathalie Lambrecht (second in the women's) and Cohan van Dijk (third in the men's) took a double podium. What the riders show in those contests feeds straight back to the designers. That is how titles and product development come together at North.

Curious about the specific technologies behind this gear? Read on at the North kite page.

The North Kiteboarding head office sits in Noordwijk, right on the North Sea. North Sails is based in the United States. A large part of product development happens in New Zealand, home of the America's Cup, where the coast catches wind and swell from every direction. It is hard to think of a better place to test prototypes. Clinton Filen is responsible for the direction of the brand as Chief Brand Officer. Paul Hayden, Chief Technology Officer at North Technology Group, looks after the technical knowledge the whole group shares, from sail to kite.

The first kite range after the restart came from Pat Goodman, one of the best known kite designers in the sport. Since 2021 Dutchman Pepijn Smit has been the face of the kite design. He has been designing kites for almost twenty years, and previously did so for wind energy. His method: prototype, test riders, feedback, adjust, and repeat until it is right. Every size is designed and tested separately rather than simply scaled up or down.

Production is split by product group. Kites and bars are made in Sri Lanka, in a factory with more than thirty years of experience working with cloth and lines. It runs through over 1.5 million linear metres of cloth and more than 3 million metres of line every year. In 2021 that factory was named one of the best employers in Asia by Great Place to Work. Boards and bindings come from China, where the large composite factories of the boardsports industry are based.

North takes a practical approach to sustainability. Every kite bag is made from an average of 33 recycled PET bottles, the clothing is 100% organic cotton, and the brand is working to remove plastic from its packaging. The most important point is perhaps the least visible: material that lasts. A kite that stays tight and strong for seasons longer does not need replacing as quickly. That is the better choice for your wallet and for the ocean.