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Arrgh
Joined: 05 May 1998 Posts: 864 Location: Rio
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Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2014 7:41 pm Post subject: |
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Real Wind 271 for sale on Craig's List (Santa Rosa.) |
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cbknap
Joined: 03 Jun 1997 Posts: 372
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Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2014 7:54 pm Post subject: |
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I think it was easier to design a good board 10 or 15 years ago. Make them nearly 9' long, lots of flat on the rocker, plenty of room left for a good nose scoop. Example: the 2000 Mistral/Naish 8'11 Freewave. Great board---super easy to plane through jibes, narrow width (21") meant it handled chop well and worked great rail-to-rail on a wave.
Now consider a more modern version, something like the 2009 JP 101 Freestyle wave, about what the O.P. is referencing--246 cm long and nearly 24 1/2" wide (62 cm). Boxy center section and fairly flat bottom makes it bouncy and pound-y, shorter rocker means it takes more skill to get on a plane and aggressive jibing technique (i.e., an early sail flip) to plane through jibes. Plus if you don't get the base, boom height, straps and fin just right it's hard to get the sail power down--board wants to ride nose high.
Tuned just right, it's faster, goes upwind better and rides the waves better than the old Naish. It's also a lot more technical. The Naish was without a doubt easier to ride.
The new 2014 JP FSW is only 232 cm long but it has double concaves under the mast intended to erase the bouncy and pound-y; some of the thickness in the center section has been moved to the back to make it plane up quicker and sail more comfortably.
Bottom line -- some short/wide boards were great and some were, shall we say, in transition. You can tune some of the problems by pushing the mast base forward, lowering the boom; playing with the straps and fin. If none of that works for you try a different board.
Interestingly, Naish has a new freewave style board for 2014 called the Starship that seeks to recreate some of the magic of the 2000 8'11. The 100 liter version is 240 cm long and 62.3 cm wide, bottom shape is single concave to double concave to V. Some of the shape is pushed forward of center, like the very accessible Richard Green and Mark Nelson slalom designs. That forward width (on the slalom boards anyway) makes the board plane up fast and then the width kind of disappears at speed. That shape and design brief sound excellent to me...only negative is the advertised weight of 7.7 kgs (nearly 17 lbs.). ouchy!
Get a cheap flight to Maui this spring and try all of the new boards.
Then repost with your thoughts.
--chris |
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dllee
Joined: 03 Jul 2009 Posts: 5328 Location: East Bay
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Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2014 9:33 pm Post subject: |
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I still ride the 8'11"er, with the nose cut down by Z man, to 8'4".
But I swear, and I"m too lazy to look in my van, that it's 58cm wide, with a 37.5 cm tail width. Not good at math, that might compute to 22.5" wide. |
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spanker_jeep
Joined: 15 Mar 2002 Posts: 404 Location: Outer Richmond District.
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Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 11:53 am Post subject: |
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With all that volume and width under the straps a big issue I encountered was fins. My arsenal of swept All Terrain fins 10", no longer work. The amount of leverage generated with even light heel pressure would cause spinout. So I am using longer fins.
I blame Naish for developing compact boards and starting the stub trend. Now that all that damage has been done he comes out with what I have been longing for since the Endure line. The 2014 Starship "old skool" length with a narrow tail. I did get a 100lt 2012 Fanatic Hawk which works amazingly well. |
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ctuna
Joined: 27 Jun 1995 Posts: 1125 Location: Santa Cruz Ca
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Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 2:58 pm Post subject: Looks like you should find an older board then. |
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Looks like you should find an older board then.
Or have a custom made to your specs. |
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spanker_jeep
Joined: 15 Mar 2002 Posts: 404 Location: Outer Richmond District.
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Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 2:59 pm Post subject: |
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I loved my Bic RAP. That was a fun 86 board. You could jump it to the moon. Too bad I put the mast track through the deck. |
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boggsman1
Joined: 24 Jun 2002 Posts: 9118 Location: at a computer
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Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 3:29 pm Post subject: |
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I keep my Real Wind boards around specifically to address the issue you are having. When I sail rude, Bay chop, the RW boards, with their old school narrow profile , just slice through the crap. Your knees and lower back will thank you. BTW- I'm selling a 90 LTR RW Fish, mint condition. |
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isobars
Joined: 12 Dec 1999 Posts: 20935
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Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 4:00 pm Post subject: |
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Suba-rude wrote: | I blame Naish for developing compact boards and starting the stub trend. ...The 2014 Starship "old skool" length with a narrow tail. |
"Blame"? They have some advantages in many venues and applications, so it's up to buyers to make informed choices regardless of manufacturer or dealer PR. We gotta choose the weapon best suited to our own task, defined by our venue, sailing style and objectives, and preferences.
I didn't follow the Stubby's emergence closely, but Starboard had Stubbies (shortwide boards) for years while Naish was still producing "Trads" (longer, narrower TRADitional shapes). In particular, Starboard's EVO took our world by storm at the Vargas PWA event in 2003, yet Naish's 2008 Pro 1111 Wave was still a "trad". I had a 2008 EVO and a 2008 Pro 1111, both in 80 liters, but they were worlds apart in their performance envelopes. I'll die clutching that Naish, but I quickly sold the EVO to a guy whose sailing style, even
at the same venues, was far better suited to it. Choices!
I had to chuckle at the "Starship" name and at Robby's comment that his brother Randy designed it. I had a Starship hand-built by Randy in the '80s, but it was a tiny nuke-sized pocket rocket, nothing like the current 90-115-litre models. More surprising is that Randy still lives, breathes, and functions. I couldn't even walk into his Hood River shaping room (i.e., garage) to check on the board's progress; the fumes were like a brick wall. Yet there he was, no respirator and no ventilation, breathing that stuff as though there was oxygen in it.
The new Starship is stubby, at 235 X 59.7 in its smallest size, 90 liters, but that doesn't necessarily peg it as behaving like the usual Stubby; shape still matters. I own, ride, and love at least 4 Naish wave boards of different ages and sizes from 65 to 80 liters. The only one I didn't like was a slightly larger size, about 90L, which turned like a school bus despite being a Trad. |
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dllee
Joined: 03 Jul 2009 Posts: 5328 Location: East Bay
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Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 5:47 pm Post subject: |
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"Too short" would be the 217cm Naish slalom of early 2000's, and the worse ever board, the HYPERSONIC, any size. The WORST, and I got banned by IanFox, for saying it.
The WORST, slowest to plane givin sail size, slowest in top speed, but smoothest riding even well out of it's range. A pure slug.
How could I have said that, when lots of sailors said they liked it?
BECAUSE IT WAS DISCONTINUED by 2006 or so. And never replicated, ever, by any company!. |
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spanker_jeep
Joined: 15 Mar 2002 Posts: 404 Location: Outer Richmond District.
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Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2014 7:29 pm Post subject: |
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That Naish Slalom was a joke. Like lot's of Naish stuff it's designed to be extreme, extreme cut outs, extremely short luff, extremely compact size extremely fast etc...... I love the quality though, attention to detail throughout. Most his stuff is better if you're under 175lbs. I've owned lots. |
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