I built a 1.5 lb.foam board for Colin Herlihy to ride in the Md./Del. breaks. He has had such a great time on it that he took it to Hawaii for the winter. I had glassed it the same as mine, 7.2 oz volan bottom/tail patch and a 3 layer staggered deck, 7.2 full length, 6 oz. to center from tail, and a 4 oz. tail patch. He has been surfing huge Sunset on it with terrific results, until yesterday. He got a 15 footer and hit a table top slab of water in the face on the drop, it slowed him to the point of flying past the nose to the trough. When the punishment was finished, he surfaced to find his baby buckled, but not broken. I never intended for it to be ridden in those conditions, it lasted for a month. It buckled ahead of the double layer
Question: was the forward edge of the 6 oz patch curved or straight? Nice to see a board properly glassed, not made overly light to fit the wanna-be-a-pro idea. thanks doc…
The 6 oz. layer was cut to run forward along the rail as a hand grab to keep from crushing the rails during duck dives, it then ran back to just ahead of center, enough to get both feet on double glass
Jim…, That’s an old problem related to patches. I built a board with Scott Bouchard for Pipeline where we laminated a double 6 bottom and a triple 6 deck. We didn’t want patches for the reason you stated. He also put carbon power rods in the bottom and had rail channels in the deck. He rode it on the North Shore for four winters and ended up selling it. With that much glass it was surprisingly light, no heavier than a standard Pipe board. We found that when glassing with epoxy, the glass, after the first layer, doesn’t add all that much weight.