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meccaloha wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 15, 2020 10:20 pm

What about auto-untwist on the bar? does it untwist itself or do you have to do it by hand under the bar?

ThickAir wrote: ↑

Wed Sep 16, 2020 5:08 pm

I'm 5'10" with same wingspan, but I guess I just like the bar close to me. I do have trouble easily reaching a spun bar when kite is really low. No problems when it's high, but that's not how I kite, if you know what I mean.

mattaiken MYS NKB wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 15, 2020 10:16 pm

Hugh2 wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 15, 2020 12:17 am

walester wrote: ↑

Thu Sep 03, 2020 7:11 pm

I have no experience with the 2021 bar, but I have ridden the 2020 bar 5 times a week from June until now and it has been amazing. Love the simplicity of it, the lines, and the safety has been good the couple times I have needed it. The grip is maybe a little harder than I would like, but potentially less durable if it was softer. The unique grip angle is nice and the easily swapped pigtails on the lines have been handy.

I have a separate thread on my problems with the 2020 Navigator (concerning accidental releases of the chicken loop). I've used it a ton this season and mostly like it a lot. You just have to double-check last thing before launching that the chicken loop has not worked itself off your harness hook - this is caused by the stiffness of the encased main and flag-out lines and is likely the same for 2021. It is easy to forget to do this, I even did it once again just last week.

One issue raised in another post here and all reviews is the stupidly small tabs on the bungees, leading to them getting stuck in the floats. Easily solved by buying two tiny stainless steel carabiners to put on each. 2021 bar has larger tabs on the bungees.

Only other issue I've noticed is that while the encased main and flag-out lines slide cleanly through the bar in salt water, not so much in fresh water, something I've not seen mentioned in reviews, and something they might have solved in the 2021 where the hole in the bar is apparently a little bigger.

I have some insight from our bar designer:

There have been over 20x small incremental improvements in the 2021 Navigator which make it a super clean, safe and simple control system. Noteable:
1) Security finger has been stiffened reducing the chance of accidental unhooking
2) The Pull Tabs have been increased in size so they can't pull up the EVA bar end floats, and they also feature bar sizes for quick easy identification, S, M and L.
3) The bar center-piece internal geometry has been modified giving less friction hence less wear on the multibore tubing

Regarding colour, I personally find the red tab on the left side of the bar is easy to see and I don't have an issue figuring out which way to lay out the bar. I'm not sure what more to say on this.

You can find a full interview with Hugh in Kiteworld Magazine here:
https://magazine.kiteworldmag.com/issue ... h-pinfold/

Hugh2 wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 15, 2020 12:17 am

It's great that North has fixed these 2020 problems with the 2021 bar, however it is disappointing that these problems were not noticed in prototype testing and fixed before release of the 2020 bar. In addition, all but the tiny bungee stoppers were not noted in any reviews I saw, so I now have a $500 2020 bar that I will be using for the next few years and putting up with these issues, admittedly mostly minor but also annoying (right up till you launch without checking the chicken loop and in the first gust the kite releases to the flagout line and ends up in a tree or worse). Then you have a $1500 problem!