This was designed for the Mentawais trip this March – it was the board i took out if i was feeling a little insecure. It was so stable and confidence inspiring and did exactly what it said on the box… smooth clean lines, no dramas. It got in early and drove down the face nicely. What i hadn’t expected was for it to go as well as it did this morning at Nettles, (my nickname for this great A frame beachbreak with a 30 minute walk and a little goat tracking). Head high set A frames, shoulder high walls, with the lefts being the better option. The board was, as usual, beautifully stable and unflappable even over the odd bit of chop. I don’t know how much of this is to do with the wood and the parabolics (thanks Mark) vs. the shape, but as a package it all works beautifully. The robustness is also impressive, especially as it is the same weight as a comparable PU board even with all the wood.
Today the board excelled in the small stuff driving calmly but quickly across the faces and yet being able to come hard off the bottom and the top. I was playing around a bit as well, trying to put some of Russell Winter’s tips from the trip into action… and one one wave it worked so sweetly I couldn’t quite believe it was possible on a 6’8 board. Half way along the wave I set up for a section with a really hard bottom turn and then drove acutely back up the face, and instead of rotating too early (and not getting vertical) I kept low, delayed the turn, keeping on the rail and came right up onto the lip, pivoted round hard a fast and back into the face and onto the next section… thanks Russ!
So i guess my conclusion is if you wanted only one board, and it needed to be strong, light, would go in small and large waves, with enough float and glide to make surfing a bit easier… then this would be at the top of my list. Oh, and the wood also feels as good as it looks.
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