Its my second season been using a 160 litre naish kailua, comfortable in the harness and both footstraps, plane, can waterstart and tack, but cant gybe yet.
People tell us i should get a smaller board, got offered an old 92 litre starboard EVO fairly cheap, think its like 2003, would that be ok, or is it to big a leap in volume?
I'm 6"3' and about 85kg and dont have any issue going out in strong wind.
any help would be great, thanks. (or suggestions for differant board to look for )
If you are learning to gybe something in the 110 - 120 L size will give you the stability you need to learn more quickly whilst promoting carving. 92 L would be too much of a challenge unless you have excellent coordination and determination.
Are you after something for flat water or waves? Flat water is certainly easier to learn on until you have gybing sorted. Waves and chop add an extra dimension of difficulty.
agree on the 120L size. I went from 160 -110 and i think i went a little to small at first. Ok now but would like to have that 125l board for the average days and bigger gear.
welcome to the forums.
90 litres is probably around where you'll eventually end up, but you will find it very, very twitchy compared to the stability you get from 160lts. 90 will be challenging to tack, and probably sink if the wind drops out.
bigger boards forgive bad footwork, smaller boards punish you for it. you've got good sail handling skills to waterstart and plane in footstraps, but going to a smaller board will reveal how your footwork is. even the 120lts will be 'interesting' the first few sessions so unless you are brutally determined and masochistic, i'd leave the 90lt for a season or two.
120lts has enough nose that you'll still be able to tack around the front, and limp home in poor winds, but most importantly it'll respond a lot better to foot pressure than your 160. the improved manoeuvrability will allow you to work on entering gybes with confidence and speed. giddey up!
Totally agree on the previous, and would like to offer an opinion without bias. The Tabou rockets are very forgiving and the 125 is a good piece of kit to hang on to even when you do progress to a smaller board.
it depends if your sailing flat shallow water or heavy chop , shallow fat water it will be a piece of cake , but if your sailing chop you would need something bigger
take into account that once you can water start, you progress much faster and also take into account if you got it fairly cheep, you should be able to sell it fairly cheep
I agree with the comments on the mid-sized board. At 6'3" & 110kgs I went from 165 to 135, then a year later down to 109, traded the 165 & kept the 135 until it kicked it.
Since then I've sold my 109 & got a 116 (confused?). The 116 does everything I want it to, but I'm on the lookout for a 140ish board for those light-wind days & marginal offshore breezes.
