After lurking for a few months I thought I’d jump in with a question. Attached are a few pictures of an old sail board that I have not been able to part with over the years. The finbox was damaged on a rock back in the day and I’ve never gotten around to fixing it. Well, now that winter is over I’m looking to try out SUP and was hoping to use this board. The plan is to only be out in flatish nonsurfable conditions just tooling around for exercise and a way to get wet.
So, that brings me to the question: Will this board work? It’s 9’ 5", about 4" thick, and 22.5" wide. I was lighter back in the day, but from what I can remember it used to float me. I’m 6’ 1" and 185lbs now. I’m thinking it’s around 130 to 140 on the volume scale, but I could be way off.
I’ll need to fix up the finbox before I can float it, but from most of the posts it seems like people are on 10’ plus boards. So is it worth the fix? I hope to start building boards this year and would imagine any work with glass and resin would be good practice for me.
Any advise on the finbox fix would be helpful. The wood stringer was cracked, so what I’m thinking of doing is stuffing some glass and resin between the outside foam and the stringer and the glassing over the entire area. I imagine I need to tape off the box and then sand flat to expose it.
While I dunno beans about SUPs qua SUPs, a few thoughts about finbox repair.
First off, I see the stringer and the foam betwixt it and the finbox are kinda thrashed on one side. So what I might try is to carefully cut the box loose on the other side, take it out and maybe clear out any cracked and crunched foam, then bed the finbox back in a bedding of cabosil under cloth, maybe a skosh above where it currently is. Take the cloth out to the edges of where it was ripped away, let the lamination go off, then sand flush, then a light lamination over that and extending onto the old glass for a few inches.
You could try a pale yellow tint in that first layer with the finbox, then clear in the second, and it might be a fair color match besides, without any major transitions.
Uhmm- I would maybe cheat a little when setting the finbox in. Put a fin in there, then pour melted wax into the box so it’s full. This’d let you get the box properly aligned at 90 degrees to the bottom without risking filling the box full of resin. The wax will mostly come out, what’s left might help the fin slide a little. I have had a couple boo-boos while resetting fin boxes, and when they are off by even a few degrees, it shows.
While the board is narrow-ish compared to some of the large paddleboards I’ve seen, it’s kinda full at the ends, besides which you could maybe do something with the centerboard well to act as an anti-roll keel, which might add considerable stability when standing on it but not moving at a plane which would add a lot to the stability.
Thanks for the advise doc. The box in the center is for a mast, not a center board so that’s out in terms of stability. Also, since only one side of the box was messed up I was hoping to not have to pull the whole thing. I think if I were going to use it again with a sail I’d need an entire new box due to the forces, but my hope with the SUP is that I won’t really crank on it that much.
I think cutting out the “bad” foam is a good start. I can see it compressed and cracked.
Anyone know the best place in the Santa Barbara area to buy supplies for board building? Are there better/cheaper options if I go south?
22.5" is really narrow for a SUP. 27-30+" is a normal width range for a SUP.
just as a reference point…
12’1" LARID HAMILTON SUP (surftech)
LENGTH: 12’1"
NOSE: 21.00"
MID: 31.00"
TAIL: 19.25"
THICK: 4.13"
9’6" would be on the short side, expecially for a beginner SUP rider, though the SUPs are starting to get shorter. Generally they are still in the 10’6"-12’ range.