Yeah guys, many hours of fun there.
I'm just glad to be able to curb my hours of internet addiction searching for boards and now I can get a good nights sleep (1 more sleepless night until i get my hands on those sweet boards), and maybe my wife will get to see the husband that she married.
cheers guys, see you out there someday soon. Converted!!!
Potty
Just picked up "The Groceries"
Santa has come early
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Photos don't do these boards justice and I was blown away by the finish, particularly on the WOW 14' GSR when I first locked eyes on it. Stu, I know what you mean now about the chined rails (top and bottom) and this level of detail confirmed my buy. Everything about the board's attention to detail highlights a quality piece of equipment which cannot be seen in photos. Very decent single concave through the middle to double near the rear with V at the back end. Pointed nose looks sic and I am frothin' to test the big girl out (tomorrow) but can't stop looking at it.
Decided to take the Luke Short 9'2" instead of the 8'10" which will help me find my feet better I think. Bottom graphic design looks sweet as. Rails are thinned out at the edge to help bite into the wave and its obvious to my eye that these boards are designed to really perform on the wave, not just catch it. Super stoked and might take this one out tomorrow or next day.
Simon Anderson 12' Combo is for a mate but the board will live at my place for a while. Ideal board for the big fella (good price and weight in particular, with the well used character to go with it from catching many Long Reef bombie waves) but maybe I can take the wifey on a bay DWer with her on it, and me and my dog on the big orange girl. I tried very hard to convince my mate to buy the 12'6" GSR as well to store at my house and we could just combine boards and use whatever we wanted if we were paddling alone, or me use the 12'6" GSR and he use the 14" GSR if we were downwinding or ocean/coastal running together.
Plus 2 Stand Sure carbon paddles that don't look much in photos online but yet again was amazed at the finish, graphics, weight, price, and shape and feel of the elliptical shaft with a really nice fairly pronounced (sharp) dihedral on the blade. The flow of the blade into the shaft without a pronounced neck looks super nice.
Most of all, I was blown away by the service "The SUP Shop" gave us, both over the phone yesterday (weighing boards for me) and today with Brian more than putting up with us asking him every question under the sun and gave us 3+ hours of dedicated time to helping us newbies get into SUP. He measured, cut, and glued our paddles (included), gave us the rundown about our fins (quads vs thruster, and the small skeg fin that can be inserted in the middle of the 14' GSR for tracking in a big sidewind/ocean), cut out a spare deck grip (included), sourced the boardbags for the 14' GSR and 9'2" Luke Short (included), done great deals on leashes, sunnies, T-shirts, wettie tops, sunscreen, ding repair kits (included for us noobs) and listened to us dribbling on with excitement (included).
What more can I say, thanks a hell of a lot Brian for your outstanding customer service and your enthusiasm and willingness to share the history of the development of your boards for local Australian (and specifically East Coast) conditions targeted towards people like yourself (with surfing backgounds) who want no-nonesense products, big thanks to you Deano for making me act when i needed to and giving me the heads up on the relocating sale, thanks alot Stu for taking the time to give me the details of your board (which is also now mine) and if your satisfaction is anything to go by, I will be in for a ton of fun. DJ, thanks for your comments and I appreciate your experience and opinions. The Naish 14' Glide would have been hard to pass up and was edging at the top of my list but the deciding factor over other 14' ocean/DW boards for me is that in conjunction with being a good allround paddler (speed, upwind, and sideward) I just wanted something that I could also ride in small/medium surf (on occasions) and still have good turning control over, so the WOW 14' GSR suits my particular needs above all.
Frothin at the bit.
Now to do the time!!!
PottyMullet
Hope you are still frothin this much in a couple of months after having given the new toys a work out. Enjoy
Yeah mate, christened the big orange girl today and took it out for 2 hours in the ocean (South Maroubra around the headland to Malabar/Long Bay and return) in conditions that I intended to take it, and definitely pushed the boundaries for my first session. Still a solid 4 foot swell rolling through (after it being 10ft on Thursday) combined with big backwash from the headland that holds deep water below it, and the wind coming from all directions and changing around a bit due to rain squalls.
I came off 4 times and in the lumpy conditions with backwash going one way with the swell crossing the opposite way, and with the wind chop thrown in, the 14' GSR does not feel so big anymore but handled it amazing. That nose slices through the ocean like butter and the dihedral back from the nose coped a good working over a number of times and this board is thick with plenty of volume as you know so needs a decent lump of water to come over the deck.
Mate it was electric out there, dark, squally, raining, and felt isolating at times (was solo) but the buzz was amazing and during the roughest section was a pod of dolphins just in front of the board (blessing the big girl on her maiden voyage).
Exceeded all my expectations, particularly the way the nose cuts (pierces) silently through the lumps and i was expecting the board to really bog down at that point but it just keeps on truckin and eases through the lumpy conditions and gets rid of the water quick.
Considering I am inexperienced and have never ridden a big SUP in the ocean before, let alone those conditions, highlights the potential for this board to handle anything if the driver can handle it. I did get a little fatigued in the end but this is my first board (and a big one at that) so I have no decent paddling fitness or technique, but I did learn real quick that any technique you do have gets seriously challenged during a rough and rolling sea. This will improve with time I suspect.
Testing the Luke Short out tomorrow.
Still Frothin!!!
Potty
Any more rides?
I really like the shape of the DW board.its 14x28inches wide ?
Thanks bruce
Here's my vid from the other day when I took the 14 for a down wind run.. The wind died but the board was great.
Here..
Hi Bruce
Pics of Dimensions, 298 Litres.
Third ride on this board today and got the wifey to drop me at Brighton Le Sands at 9am. She was not really that happy to have the board on her car, not because she thought it might damage the roof or because she thought that the car couldn't handle it without roof racks, but because she thought it would look ridiculous on her car. I did it anyway.
I was hoping for more wind but at least it was going in the right direction, towards La Perouse. Pretty cruisey paddle for a few Kms to La Pa and not busting my gut. Took around 2 hrs with relatively light winds but as predicted the winds only started blowing nicely at the end of the run, so I should have waited 2 hours to do it but had family commitments. Checking the BOM observations for the time I was paddling showed around 15km/h winds, but should have waited untill arvo when same location averaged around 40km/h from 1.30pm onwards. Oh well, next time. Bruce, I have never owned a board before so I have nothing to compare to but this might be a good thing in so far that my inexperience will detect anything that is not user (gumby) friendly. Was really happy with the board and glides with ease, stable, and catches runners and waves nice. I stopped at the end of my run at Bare Island Bombie again, I was there on thursday riding some decent sized waves on the Simon Anderson, Awesome board!!! See www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Stand-Up-Paddle/SUP/Bare-Island-Bombie-anyone/
This time the bombie was even bigger and sucking up alot more so was a little scary and I was cautious. Despite the wind blowing around 30km/h at this stage and straight into the face of the wave, I managed to catch one wave (around 6 feet) and fly down the face at warp speed. The nose stabbed slightly in oncoming chop and my lightweight frame slipped forward off the deck grip and onto the shiny front of the board. You know what that means, theres no stopping the slipping off. I was in the safe part of the wave (deep water) so no dramas. To cut a long story short, this is exactly what I wanted in a board, good glide and easy paddling, stable, catches waves well and will smoke some big stuff if you want to. Not really ideal to ride big beach/bombie waves but can do it and it will be at home in big swell and open ocean waves. Control in the waves (for me at 70kg) will require moving around on the board and this is where I need to improve. Coming back in to La Perouse I caught 2 nice little waves that wrapped around Bare Island (lea to the wind) towards the walking bridge that allows you to walk out to the island. The board just kept on going and going and this really wasn't even a breaking wave all of about 2 feet. I had to watch it because at one point I was heading straight for scuba divers that had surfaced in the channel and the board was still motoring on the swell. Love this board thats all I can say, it's user friendly but performs.
Driving back home in my car. The most ironic thing is that my part-time job that helps pay for my toys is working in a retail shop that specialises in roof racks and installation. I just haven't got around to it yet but I will put a track mount system on both cars to spread the load apart nicely for boards but then I can pull the bars closer together to fit bike racks for the MTB's.
Stlll Frothin!!!
PottyMullet
