ROW,
Board is 8’ long, 4.25" thick, 25.5" wide with all the meat carried out to the rails, soft 50/50 all the way nose to tail.
How does it ride? Well, let me preface this with the fact that I have a messed up back, so I needed something that would float my 200lbs enough to knee paddle, (which is why there is a little balsa deck patch…which has not dented at all yet). It paddles fast, catches ripples with ease both prone and knee paddling, but also pearls with ease if you aren’t careful with the angle of your dangle. On a plane it is super fast with the spitfire fin, and on the rail it is anything but fast because there is so much meat on those rails. This is less a design flaw, and more intentional, as I wanted a board that was slower for weak mushy waves. However, it is slower in trim than I intended. That being said, if I tail surf it in the right kind of wave and pump it I can get some speed up, and if I trim forward I can connect up sections pretty well as it doesn’t bog down.
It turns very easily, although this is in comparison to the much longer boards I usually ride. Because it is slow, I sometimes need to trim forward, and with all that width in the nose she actually noserides reasonably well.
If I make another version, I might remove some volume, as I think I can get away with a little less. Most of this would come off of the rails, as I would also take it from 50/50, and make it more like 70/30, hopefully speeding it up a smidge for shorebreak. Might make the tail with rails turned down more still. I would also add an inch of nose rocker, and maybe take out an inch of tail rocker. As it is, I think it only has ~3 inches nose and tail, and the deck is totally flat.
In short, in the right wave, it is a whole lot of fun. In pitching shorebreak, it does not excel.
SPUD,
Good to hear. I had heard they were good (well, read in the archives here at Sways), but five years and still going is pretty awesome! And a sandwich compartment is a great idea.
–BCo
