Steve on the 2017 Fireball - Review

The head honcho himself took the new 2017 Cabrinha Fireball system for a spin the other day and has deigned to pass along his insight.

I first flew a Wipika 2-line 5 meter kite back in October of 1999. Over the years, kiteboarding gear keeps improving by leaps and bounds, but there have been very few moments when I have seen a new system or product that I feel will really change a complete segment of gear. The Crossbow / Switchblade release in 2006 was definitely one of those moments. Slingshot with one pump - are you going back to multi-point inflation? I don't think so. The Pickle Fork, death for an edge. Foil boarding – this is going to open so many hours of riding in light wind places. This year we began selling WMFG pumps, and as silly as it may sound, nobody is ever going back to an old pump. Now I have found what I think will be another - the Cabrinha Fireball.

One thing that I think is important to remember is that this is the first generation. There are still a few pretty big drawbacks to the system, but I feel that by generation 3 that most brands will adopt this technology or feel the kiteboarders' wrath of lower sales.

We grabbed a medium Dakine C1 harness to install the new spreader bar on. The medium was used so the most of the guys in the shop could ride it. As a guy with a 36" waist, it did cause a bit of discomfort while riding. The switch over only took about ten minutes on the ride up to Muskegon. Very easy to put on a Dakine harness.

Bonus fun: I had the new 2017 Contra 19 and the winds were in the 13-16mph range. At 215lbs, big is better. I highly recommend this kite for riders over 200lbs, even over the 17 which I love. A bit more consistent power with longer floater jumps.

The Fireball is about as easy as you can get to hook in with. Pop it in and pull the locking mechanism in place.

The most interesting thing I found was that I really didn't notice the Fireball at all. When I normally ride, I occasionally have to play with my loop or my harness because something isn't sitting quite right. With the Fireball. you never have to do this. No upward pull, no movement on the harness hook while riding toe side. It just plain works - with none of the drawbacks of a loop and pin. Cabrinha has really done a great job looking at one of the few areas that really needed to be completely redesigned and figured it out.

Ryan H, our lead instructor, came off the water after a few tacks and simply said "Unless you're unhooking, there's no reason to have a different system". Our unhooked young gun Pat T was duly impressed as he came blasting into the beach full speed toe side. He even did a few unhooked tricks and said it was a bit awkward, but not too bad for a first run. Each person was very impressed with the comfort and smoothness of the Cabrinha Fireball. Even more importantly, everyone felt it was truly a big step forward.

I will be switching my Dakine Fusion out this week and will be riding Fireball the rest of the season. Another perk is that the Cabrinha bar is interchangeable with almost every kite I may want to ride, so I can just have the one bar setup.

Should you purchase a Fireball bar or Fireball upgrade kit?

Do you ride hooked in over 90% of the time? Do you want to improve your toe side riding? Does the loop and pin bother you occasionally while riding? Do you already own a Cabrinha bar (2014 or later)? Do you just love new gear? If you are answering yes to the above questions, it will probably be a really solid upgrade for you. Yes, I do consider it to be a very nice upgrade, like changing your harness.

If you are a serious unhooked rider I would not recommend version one, but I am pretty sure version two will work for you.

After spending some time on the new Cabrinha Fireball I found very few down sides (except you can't ride it with a five line kite) and some really great improvements to the comfort and feel. In fact, I will go out on a limb here and say you are looking at the new industry standard within five years.