I bought a Formula windsurfing board about a year ago. I bought it extremely cheap as I did not know if I’d like it and these boards are ridiculously expensive. It’s clear this board needs some restoration.
These boards are great for low wind with a massive sail, it’s even scary when racing this thing at full speed.
I also tried it to teach my wife as it’s quite stable. But there are some issues:
It's extremely fragile
The mastrail is way too much forward on the board as it is made for massive sails.
There is no daggerboard
So let’s turn this board in the perfect hybrid: A softtop raceboard
Here is the first day of work:
The previous owner clearly didn’t know how to properly fix a ding.
This guy’s nose had a heavy beating. Soft spots removed, time for a nose job.
Some people should be kept away from epoxy. Yes, this is epoxy peeling off, no glass in it at all.
Glass over the wood veneer is not needed, only over the plugs? That explains it being dinged by walking on it.
When the dings are repaired:
I’ll cover it with an extra layer of glass and some EVA foam.
I’ll install an extra mastrail.
I’ll install an extra finbox to fit a daggerboard.
Seems like a fixed daggerboard of any size would put a lot of stress on a fin box – constant pressure except for downwind sailing, Will you anchor the fin box to the deck?
Testing my >4 year old RR epoxy. The opened resing bottle was cristalized, but the not opened was just a bit viscous. The resin hardened just as expected.
Routed down the cancer left by the previous owner. Not bad for a freehand router job, isn’t it?
Routed and rasped the other cancers.
All the deck patches in place.
Let’s warm up the resin to make it less viscous and try to de-crystalize the old resin. Both goals seem to be acheived.
The poor mans vacuum bag.
Another angle.
The resin seems to cure very fast. I use the RR Fast hardener. Anyone experienced faster curing with old batches?
I haven’t used RR often, maybe it’s just faster than the resins I normally use.
@stoneburner: Yes the finboxes are connected to the deck. Allmost all windsurf boxes are except for the US box. The standard fin for this board is 70cm long to handle a 12m2 sail, fin forces can’t get any worse than this.
And the daggerboard is only used by beginners with small sails.
Day 3: Tape seems to be a perfect vacuum system for convex shapes!
Out of the tape bag. Extra mastrail and finbox for daggerboard.
Check the fin for this board, it’s massive. So if I install the daggerboard box properly, it should be strong enough and I’ll never install a daggerboard longer than 40cm.
5oz glass under the HD foam.
Check how massive this finbox is.
323g
Shape restored.
Still need to patch a part of the nose, I didn’t dare to do it with only one piece of HD foam.
Next I’ll be installing the mastrail, center finbox (daggerboard), last nosepatch and maybe replace some rusted footstrap inserts.
