The board has exceeded my wildest expectations.
This was definitely worth the effort.
It felt fast upwind too. Amazing, because until today, upwind always felt like torture.
Sorry about the iphone photos. I was in a rush to get on the water.
Here is Brad coming down the waterway.
Here is Brad passing by.
Here is Brad trying to stop. You actually have to throw on the brakes with this board. It glides fast.
Next step is to actually finish the board.
It still has round soft rails in the back, and the bottom still hasn't been sanded perfectly flat. So it's going to get FASTER.
FYI, the sharp rails in the back of a board are built up using tape and resin. That will be done later this week. Then it needs some paint and a deck pad.
This was the quick and dirty test, just to see if this was a waste of time. I'm thrilled to know it's not. Now I'll order fiberglass for board number 2 and start shaping that one next week.
Stability and volume feel perfect in the flat water. I'll do an ocean downwinder tomorrow evening to confirm everything is OK for rough water.
The board is 26 3/4 wide.
I saw a huge school of sharks tonight circling in the eddy currents where Snows Cut meets the Intercoastal. Needless to say, I didn't paddle at that spot.
6 comments:
That is awesome that the board exceeded your expectations! Does it seem at least as fast as the Vortice?
How was the stability at your weight?
Looks really sweet. Glad it came out good.
The board feels twice as fast as my BW Vortice. The BW Vortice is only slightly faster than a common 12 ft board. Not impressive at all.
On the other hand, the XP Vortice feels very fast. My board reminds me of the feeling of speed I felt with the XP Vortice, when I was in Oahu.
Stability feels better than the BW Vortice. The BW Vortice suffers from being too thick, so you get the wobble from being too high off the water.
Nice to hear it works so well. It looks a bit like the 14' Foote that I just paddled on Maui (Rand of standupzone's board) and I really like that board a lot. His is 26.25" and I was really surprised how stable it was.
Are you going to go with the sanded bottom finish schedule recommended for race boards?..ie: http://www.boardlady.com/fast.htm
My design is Bill Foote inspired. Once I knew Rand loved his Foote, and I knew he already owned all the rest, I became even more convinced a windsurf race board rocker was the way to go. I made the assumption the Foote had a windsurf rocker because Bill is a windsurf guru.
My template is taken from the F-14. I had a perfect photo of the F-14 production board that I was able to scale to get the template.
I avoided any fancy concave bottom shapes because they are harder to shape for a newbie, and flat is always safe and fast. Concaves can hurt or help, so it wasn't worth the risk.
When you're ready to shape yours, let me know and I'll send the rocker I used.
Yes, flat paint and sanded bottom.
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