Had my first kite session with the Vanguard 5.4 today.
This is the regular surf construction, we have just added a full deckpad on it to help babying the (fragile) board. Weight is 2.9 kg fully equipped (thruster fins setup).
I won't go too deep in the test report, but a few points I can highlight are:
I am 1.91m/82kg and I was wondering if the 5.4 was too short, too low volume for me. Not at all, this size suits me well (my regular surfkite is a FW Quadra-5 6.0). You just need to adapt your positioning to the shape (feet placement and stance) otherwise you can easily become unbalanced.
The board is very comfortable in choppy condition, thanks to the large concave.
On the wave, the cut back can be very quick (pivot turn), and the board is very fast down the wave.
Overall a very exciting board that you can push hard in the waves
Conditions were side-on 20knts with lull at 15knts, 1 meter waves in average, Park 9m
Tested ans approved
Phil
Have Fun and Ride Safe