North Mode Ultra

The North Mode has been around for a few seasons now as their boundary-pushing speed and race focused wing with all of North’s technology thrown at it. It was used as the platform for the testbed of their proprietary N-Weave airframe material, which subsequently found its way into the Nova range in various forms and has been adapted into N-Weave 45 in its current form. Continuing in this pioneering tradition, the Mode Ultra sports an all-new canopy material they’ve coined NX-I which is a specifically developed composite from North Sails Advanced Textiles. In practical terms this is a clear material with a laminated mesh. It’s ultra strong, UV resistant and ultra stiff. Five sizes are available from 3.5 to 6.5m. We tested the 4.8m primarily.

In terms of shape, it’s perhaps the smoothest North wing we’ve seen yet with an incredibly slick join between the strut and leading edge, and a beautifully sculpted and smooth airframe and low-diameter leading edge for piercing the air. The forward-biased profile makes most freeride wings look decidedly sluggish, perhaps even the previous Mode. The strut has some angle in the middle orientating the bolt on/bolt off carbon handles comfortably towards the rider.

The build is quite minimal and obviously prioritizing for a lightweight race frame with the bare essentials in terms of scuff protection, although the N-Weave 45 is extremely abrasion resistant so there’s little to worry about. Another nod to race spec is a removable nose handle for no-compromises racers that wouldn’t consider it a necessity.
In practice, the Mode Ultra is an exciting wing to ride amidst a sea of homogenized freeride products, feeling genuinely different and far more purposeful. Pumping onto foil is quick and assertive, the rigid airframe and canopy translate all your effort into forward momentum, and it hops off eagerly per size. Straight away you notice the forward pull, upwind angle and huge power potential over a short sheeting stroke.

It runs extremely close to wind and sometimes on the edge of backwinding, which you need to mitigate. It’s not like a freeride wing that you can hang off all the time – you’re running on the extreme of physics – you need to feather and trim your sheeting inputs constantly to keep it running on the edge and it’s incredible just how much performance you can glean out of it. The front-hand-biased riding pulls you forwards, urging your foil up to full speed rapidly. You feel everything – every gust, every wind shift it makes you acutely aware of, which for sure is going to give the more tuned-in racer the edge in shifty conditions. Harness use would obviously be a sensible choice with a wing so engaging through the arms, and they’ve engineered the balance point between the handles perfectly to accommodate a simple harness loop. Going full tilt downwind, the characteristics are remarkably docile and controllable. The angle of the handles makes supporting the wing a comfortable experience, minimizing fatigue.

We firmly believe the North Mode Ultra is going to shake up the race scene. North Actionsports have always used their corporate link to North Sails as a marketing lever, and in the case of the Mode Ultra this is the most stark example of the level of material expertise they have at their fingertips. There are tangible and obvious performance advantages on proud display in this bleeding-edge flagship product. What may be more interesting for the average punter is how this tech is integrated into the more freeride-focused product in the long term. For the less race-focused rider, dust off the tiny foil you use infrequently, cling on for dear life, and realize just how much performance potential there is in wingfoiling. It’s fascinating to use a wing where the primary limiting speed factor is nearly always the foil. The price point is also worth mentioning – there’s a hell of a lot of tech, performance and exotic material here for your bucks.

Fast, robust, uncompromising and focused, the Mode Ultra is a wing designed for one purpose, which is blatantly the racecourse, but perhaps unintentionally strays into performance freeride for those who like a pinch of amphetamine with their meat and potatoes. We’d urge you to have a play!