RRD Longrider
Conditions: 2 – 20knots.
Sail: 5.8.
A perfect day to test drive my new RRD Longrider, with a bit of all conditions.
I wouldn’t have gone sailing today with my shortboards, it would have been a case of planing for 5 minutes, waiting 20 minutes for wind, 5 minutes planning, etc, etc. But I sailed for 2.5 hours, loving it.
It was 14-15 knots when I first went out, so first run left the daggerboard up, hooked in, and whoa, blasting along feeling like I was riding a limo! It was a similar feel to riding a shortboard, but the extra length out front meant it was riding across the chop, not going up and down – really smooth, and a totally relaxed feeling. Steered off the back foot like a shortboard, and pointed quite high solely off the 34cm fin.
In the lesser winds it took me back to the late 80’s, (last time I rode a longboard.) Slipping quietly over the water, with daggerboard down could track way upwind, just a quiet lap lap lap as it glided along. If a gust came, it was easy to push the daggerboard up with front foot, bear off, hook in, and fly away.
Tacking was easy as you’d expect, gybing when just toodling along surprised me, slow flare gybes were easy as, but when blasting it needs careful driving around a wide arc. Managed to get it airborne off a bit of chop, well not sure the fin cleared but for the conditions it wasn’t bad.
Just before I had to leave the wind picked up considerably, reckon 20 knots, and I could really feel the wind trying to get under the board and cause havoc. But hey, that’s what shortboards are for!
All in all, I was totally stoked with not only the new range of conditions I can sail in, but the style I can sail them in. I haven’t sailed a longboard since the late 80’s, so can’t compare the Longrider to the other modern longboards, but after 1 arvo on it I had a very content feeling of an arvo well spent.
Hope to test it’s surf credentials at some stage, plus child carrying ability.
