When reveiwing a board that you have designed yourself I guess you always risk being either over critical or sounding like a complete egotistical tosser. I will try to stay objective but it is pretty obvious after my first sail that I am a board design god
Seriously , I am pretty stoked.
Before I talk about the board I would like to give Peter Ross at OES a huge plug and a thankyou. He has done a wonderfully proffesional job on this board and was very patient with me when I was being a crazy designer nd changing stuff. I appreciated it hugely and would definitely recommend anybody thinking about a new board to give him a yell.
The idea behind this board was to design something that gets me planning easily yet is very fast and controlable in the nightmare messy chop we get at the northern end of Port Phillip Bay. So I went out on a limb with this design and decided to do something which could possibly be described as a scaled down Formula board. It is wide , parrallel and has a low nose rocker, but it is very thin and has aggressive wingers and rounded pin tail with cutouts to reduce the wetted area.
So does it work? Well after my first sail I think so. The wind was very light but I was desperate to try it. Rigged a 7.5 Koncept with a McDougall/Lockwood 37 Slalom fin and jumped my 90 kg's on board. I instantly realised that yes, it is only 106 litres despite it,s width, but it floated me fine and was nice and stable as I grovelled out between the reef markers at Beaumaris. Mmm, no wind , not happy!!!! and it,s bloody rough considering stuff all wind ( quite typical) I saw a puff on the water so started pumping, up she poped. Feet in straps, hooked in , YeeHaa!!! It works!!!!
Cruised out, I was pretty underdone but it planned along nicely. Now , time to see if my No1 concern is founded, It,s very parrallel so will gybe like a pig? I unhooked, stepped across, bent the knees and pushed. Around she went. Ha ,ha , not a wave board but that was easy. Cool.
Heading back in so now it was time to see if my no 2 concern was founded. That nose is way low, it,s going to be death downwind in chop,isn,t it ? Bore off and put the hammer down. No probs ,the nose stayed up and cruised over the wave tops . Got a couple of steep ones but the low angle of attack meant that if the nose did slap the back of a wave it just popped up over, no fuss. The really tucked rails in the nose meant it didn't grab. Cool again!
I cruised around for a bit longer, tried going hard up wind and a couple of deep downwinders but it was pretty light and fading. I reckon the most wind I saw was 15 knots if that and spent most of the time in 13 knots or so. Managed a 25 knot peak which is probably OK considering the lack of wind and the messy slop.
So now the bit where I get critical. Is there anything I would change . Well no , not yet , but way to early to really assess. It did feel a touch sticky but I had in too small a fin and it was poorly fitted sitting 5mm below the bottom and causing drag. I also noticed when I was unrigging that the mast base was not done up tight and had slid right to the front of the mast track. Definitely not the spot for it to be in that light breeze.
So I am grinning, just need some more wind to get a really good session on it. Id'e also love to get it down to the Pit and see how fast it goes as getting anything over 30 knots on the Northern end of the Bay is a challenge.
don't worry about makeing changes cos more than likely you will, the board i made last year, i had too vee the rails cos the rocker was sooooo flat, and fill in the cutout's and reshape, and now i'm going to recess the footpads, to get my feet close'er to the water & make some wings out of divinicell ( (like yours if they dont work ill sand them back down again) the board is no more than 65lt and carry's a 6/7, i have a ca55 and didnt use it anymore than 5 times this season
Well it,s been along time but finally got another sail on the board. A very dodgy easterly at Ricketts point so decided to try an 8.5 on it. The board handled the big sail really well although the 37cm fin was too small, needed a 42. I am very impressed with the range this board will have, 6.5 to 8.5 will have me using it heaps in the summer seabreezes. Means I can chuck one board and 3 sails in the car and know I will get a sail in after work.
It again felt really nice ,handles the chop great and planes up really easy.
26.4 knots was OK considering the light wind.
Keen to use it in 20Knots plus now with a 6.6.
I was a bit frustrated at Sandy Point yesterday waiting for the gusts to get the speed board going. So I pulled out the 106 for a run or 2.
37 knots with a 38 cm fin
It felt like a Formula Board after being on the speed board but when I beared off it just accellerated away. Not a hint of nose lift, really safe and composed. I didn't really push it, it,s definitely good for 40 knots if I am game!!!!
