Big air kites and the world jump record

Advanced Nothing has pushed kite design harder in the last five years than big air. See the jumping chapter for the technique; this section is about the gear.

Red Bull King of the Air, held at Big Bay and then at Blouberg proper since its 2013 relaunch, turned extreme jumping into the sport's main spectacle, and a class of jump kites followed: high aspect ratio, five struts, stiff airframe, tuned for vertical lift, hangtime and kiteloops.

The current flagships are the Duotone Evo D/LAB (rated a tier above the rest for raw lift, at a 25–30% price premium), the North Orbit Pro (a competition kite: lighter N-Max2 airframe, five-point precision bridle, fast steering for loops), the Cabrinha Nitro v2, the Ozone Edge V12 (the height-and-glide reference, high aspect, five struts, hard upwind drive) and its Aluula sibling the Edge Ultra-X, the Ozone Vortex Ultra-X, and the Dutch brand Harlem with its Aluula-built Force. Core, Naish, Airush and Reedin all field a big-air model too.

Jump sensors turned height into a public leaderboard, so the progression is on record. Maarten Haeger jumped 32.0 m in March 2024. Jamie Overbeek took it to 35.3 m.

In December 2025 Hugo Wigglesworth became the first rider past 40 m, at 40.0 m (131 ft), at Kite Beach in Cape Town, riding for Flysurfer; one record in that run stood 43 days before it fell. Forty metres is about a 13-storey building.

The wind behind it is the Cape Doctor, the summer south-easter at Cape Town - Blouberg/Big Bay that runs 20–40 knots from November to March and is quoted at 25–45 knots at the peak of the season.

The spot pages for the Blouberg beaches carry those ranges beach by beach, along with the launch rules. Whether 40.0 m still stands in September 2026 is unconfirmed here; records at this level fall fast.