Never Summer Harpoon 2022 Review
The Never Summer Harpoon is a wider, directional and setback board that is made to ride a little bit of everything. The name is a joke aimed at the very popular Lib Tech Orca, another directional volume shifted board. It has the Fusion rocker camber profile, a medium flex and a sintered base. Overall the Harpoon is currently the most fun board I have ridden.
How it Rides
Board size: 159cm
Boots: Salomon Launch Boa 27.5
Bindings: Salomon Highlander
I am 6 foot tall and weigh 155lbs – or 183cm tall and 70kg. I was riding with positive positive stance angles, and a fairly narrow stance. Although Never Summer say that you can ride this board 3-6cm smaller or just your regular size, 159 is on the longer end of boards that I would normally ride. I did wonder how a board that is probably going to ride better at a smaller size would go, but it turns out 159 was fine for me.
There had been a little bit of fresh snow overnight, so overall conditions were soft in the trees, and quite grippy on groomed runs.
Camber Profile
I had only ridden one other board with this profile, which was the Never Summer Swift – so I wasn’t super familiar with it. This profile is used on their directional boards, and like the name Fusion suggests, is a mix between a few. It seems like it has the large rocker section between your feet from the Original profile, a more aggressive camber section under your back foot from the Ripsaw, and a subtle camber section which flattens out on the longer nose.
Overall it does have the standard Never Summer feel when you are on the board, which I think is mostly from the feeling of the rocker section trying to push your feet up if your weight isn’t centered.
Leaning slightly back will lift the whole front of the board up, which is a good indication of why it floats well in deep snow.
Flex and Pop
I never expect to get good pop from any hybrid board (with rocker between your feet), so my expectations are realistic no matter how much carbon or extra things are added into the board to try and help. Even with the more pronounced camber profile under your back foot, it is pretty much what you would expect. I had to adjust the amount of effort that I needed to ollie, and while it was quick and easy to get used to, it is nothing like the solid pushback you would get from a camber board.
Never Summer give this board a flex rating of 5/10 and a damp rating of 5/10. I wont really comment much on the damp rating, as overall all Never Summer boards feel quite damp as a brand compared to most others.
The mid flex is stiff enough to give the board a stable feel in chopped up terrain, so I didn’t run into any situations where I felt like I was going to get thrown around if the board didn’t power through the bumps.
Still at my weight (155lbs) it wasn’t hard to move and flex the board around.
Edge Hold
Edge hold is where all Never Summer boards do well, and the Harpoon in no exception. The Vario sidecut is made up of a bunch of different sidecut sizes, which in real life gives plenty of grip in all parts of a turn.
Turns
If I had to highlight one feature that the Harpoon does best, it is turning. Whether it is the sidecut, or the Fusion profile, turning is very smooth and easy. With almost no effort, you can guarantee a strong and grippy turn, that is very natural to start, and smooth to exit.
Although this board does have a wider waist width, I didn’t feel like swapping edge to edge felt any slower like it can on other wide boards. It is probably helped by the taper, but it somehow felt almost as quick as a regular to narrow waist board.
It isn’t often that regular blue and green runs feel fun just to turn on, but that is exactly what the Harpoon does.
Float
In powder the Harpoon floats like you think it would. The nose feels quite long, and with the short tail and taper naturally keeps it above the snow. By habit I would lean back a touch, which brings the whole front half of the board up, which makes it float even easier.
Speed
The board was waxed right before I used it, so there wasn’t any situations that I felt like it was slowing me down. I haven’t ever felt like any Never Summer boards have been slow, though I have spent more time on their boards with their higher end sintered bases.
Switch
Technically the setup I had should have been pretty horrible for riding switch. A setback stance, made narrower and positive positive angles didn’t really help me, though overall it rode better switch than I expected, especially seeing I was making everything as unnatural as possible.
Overall
Overall the Harpoon was a really nice surprise. I have ridden quite a few Never Summer boards over the years (Proto Type Two, Funslinger, Proto Slinger, Swift, Ripsaw, West Bound, Warlock, Twenty Five) so I always think I have a decent idea of what to expect.
Although it shared all the similar features that I would expect from one of their boards – loose feeling to start with and very strong edge hold, it was much better than I had expected. I had read lots of good things about this board before, but you never can tell what it really rides like, especially if it is coming from a Never Summer fanboy.
Although playful, you could ride it hard and get a lot out of it, but as soon as you wanted to slow down and mess around, it has the ability to do that easily. This is an easy board to recommend, and very much worth trying if you get a chance to demo or rent one out.
Similar boards:
Features of the Never Summer Harpoon
Terrain
All Mountain, Freeride, Freestyle, Powder
Directional Volume Shape
Fusion Rocker Camber
This profile is basically what is used on their directional boards. It has quite a large rocker section between your feet, with more camber under your back foot, a small section towards the nose and a large flatter section.
5/10 Flex
A medium flex rating, soft enough that you can can flex without too much effort, but still stable enough at high speed.
Mid-Wide Width
Although they say it is Mid-Wide, compared to boards from other brands this is definitely a wide. 259mm waist on the smallest size, up to 164mm on the biggest.
Regular 2×4 Mounting
Will mount all regular bindings to the board.
UHMW Sidewall
Wood Core
Carbon Max Laminates
Bi-Lite Fiberglass
STS Pre-Tensioned Fiberglass
Co-Extruded Polymer
Durasurf XT Sintered 5501 Base
The better of the two main sintered bases that are used on Never Summer boards.
2.3 Inch Setback
Sizes available:
- 148cm
- 152cm
- 156cm
- 159cm
Womens Harpoon – 144cm and 148cm
Never Summer Harpoon 2022 Technical Specs
| Length (cm) | Waist Width (mm) | Edge (cm) | Sidecut | Taper (mm) | Nose (cm) | Tail (cm) |
| 148 | 259 | 109 | Vario 760 | 13 | 30.8 | 29.5 |
| 152 | 261 | 113 | Vario 781 | 13 | 31.0 | 29.7 |
| 156 | 262 | 116 | Vario 795 | 13 | 31.4 | 30.1 |
| 159 | 264 | 119 | Vario 801 | 13 | 31.6 | 29.8 |
Great review! Super helpful. I’m 150lb and thinking I’m going to pick up the 152 in the next couple days. Comments like this really sold me: “Although playful, you could ride it hard and get a lot out of it, but as soon as you wanted to slow down and mess around, it has the ability to do that easily.” I’ll miss the switch riding and I’ll have to relearn tail-nose-tail butters but seems like a small price to pay for an otherwise awesome ride.
Thanks! It is one of the few boards that covers so many styles of riding at once. You might be surprised at how it rides switch, not as bad as it might seem. Have a look at Skyler Gallardo on Instagram, he does some pretty crazy stuff on his.
I did end up picking this up and had some great days on it for the 2nd half of the season. Best by far was a 12″ storm with new snow falling all day. Even on the 152 I didn’t have to lean back in deeper stashes at all which was such a nice break from my stiff full camber board. The Harpoon does ride switch plenty well enough to land 1’s and spins and keep going without issue. The best surprise was how nimble it is in bumps. With very little tail to hook on and putting weight slightly more back you can whip that wide nose around super fast. It’s better than anything else I’ve ridden in bumps for sure, which is somewhere I spend a lot more time than normal riders. It took me a bit to learn how much the Harpoon likes to be driven off the back foot. Maybe this is normal for these hybrid / mostly rocker boards but I found it just too soft to do hard front-foot driving for carves – it would start flapping and skipping at speed if I was too forward aggresive. But go with even-to-back foot pressure and it was happy. It’s obviously not the carving machine a stiffer camber dominant board would be, but worth all the other awesome things you get from it. Anyway it’s nothing you didn’t know already, but a strong endorsement for anyone else reading this page and making a decision. Thanks again!
Great review! I was wondering your thoughts on this versus the Jones Frontier for a low level intermediate rider mainly sticking to carving up the groomers. Which would be better for stability at higher speeds, ease in and out of turns and edge hold for the harder icy stuff? Also which would be easier to control at slower speeds and ride cat tracks on without catching an edge? Appreciate any feedback as I’m torn between which of these two boards to go with to help me progress to the next level. Thanks! Adam
Thanks!
Those two boards are tough to compare, just because of the opposite camber styles. The Frontier is more stable at high speed (because of the regular camber), still has very good edge hold and won’t feel like “work” to ride.
The Harpoon will feel super easy to turn, with very strong edge hold with minimal effort, but will have a less stable feel at high speed until you get used to it, and make sure to keep your weight centered/even over the rocker. Much easier on cat tracks – won’t want to catch an edge at all, though the spoon on the Frontier also does the same thing.
It is a bit of personal preference, if you have ridden and like a hybrid board with rocker between the feet, stick with the Never Summer, otherwise you can’t really go wrong with the Fronter.