I had occasion to ride a swaylocks built balsa compsand this past saturday. The board is detailed in the compsand photo journal thread by widow maker. It is a mid six foot range twinzer fish at 22’’ wide. I believe the rest of the specs are available on the thread.
I know lots of people are probably interested in the compsand thing but haven’t had a chance to experience one. What follows are the impressions of a committed but mediocre surfer and self-proclaimed surfboard ‘expert’ (hehe).
Initial impressions:
The board is extremely light for its size. I obviously did not weigh it, but while it was much larger than my board (6’0 speeddialer) is was noticeably lighter.
The board is beautiful in person.
It is very buoyant. Easy to paddle but hard to duckdive.
Surf Conditions:
Chest high range beach break; good form; firm offshores giving surface some texture; very fun waves, a little soft.
The Ride:
It catches waves very easily. Very fast down the line. Solid in turns. One surprise for me was the way the board ‘resonated’–I could feel the water texture throught the deck as I rode the board–kind of a little chatter–not really a good or bad thing, just different.
I didn’t really notice much flex going on, which how I think it should be. The board just felt good and natural–kind of like a lightly built poly. The surfing characteristics of the board seemed primarly and obviously related to design not materials (lots of planing surface and wide tail with twinzer set up). That said, the board is very similar in design to a surftech model with which I have some experience (hey man can I catch a wave on that?)–the 6’6’’ hynson twinzer. Suffice it to say that I felt the compsand to be superior to the surftech–simply put–it felt more like a poly board–more natural and ‘engaged’ and easier to surf I guess–its hard to articulate. I was really wondering whether the compsand would feel like a surftech given the sandwich construction and eps core… based on my experience it was not–in fact, it didn’t feel like a surftech at all.
The long and the short… the compsand I rode just felt like a good board. I don’t see the tech ‘changing my surfing’ or anything but I’m definitely even more stoked to build one. It didn’t feel like the pvc sandwich boards I’ve ridden–much closer to PU/PE feel if not identical. I seemed really solid… not pressure dings etc. It was extremely good looking too. The flex was not noticeable but I’d say that was a good thing.
Widow maker really had the board dialed in… nice cutties, roundies, and even a little 360. It was a good day.
Reviews of other compsands would be cool on this thread I think, especially by some better surfers than myself (hehe).
hunter