We Got Our Swerve On

Tippi Turtle, Mark and I had a blast Friday at Topsail.  Unreal funnesses.

Mac and Mark

 Ohhhh mymymy

 Ohh yeah.  Pretty dang good.

Here are some of Mac's photos.  Straight from the Waterturtle blog.

Offshore Surfing Sweetness

October 25th.  The day that for me started the marathon Sandy experience.  This event lasted until October 30th.  I knew heading to Hatteras was out of the question since Leah would never forgive me when I got stranded with Hwy 12 sure to wash out.  Southern beaches it was from Thursday to Sunday.

25th OIB.  Wave sail, paddle surf, surf.
Arrived just after lunch with a nice wave already coming in and a side onshore ENE wind.  Wave sailed on the 94L & then SUP for a couple hours until the wind gave out with an offshore shift.  Grabbed the paddle and paddle surfed with Chris B. until probably 5pm when the rest of the local crew came out.  Grabbed the surf board and surfed past dark under an almost full moon with red, red sunset. Gorgeous.

26th OIB.  Marathon surf day.
Sandy was getting close enough to really start tossing us some sizable surf so most of the locals took Friday off from work to soak it all in.  I got started around 9am steady catching fun rides while the size and current increased.  By afternoon everyone was hiking way up the beach so they could make the outside before getting to Sunset beach. 

Towards evening Kyle offered to give me a ride to the pier so we could do a drift back to the tower.  The surfing equivalent of a down winder.  So 5 of us loaded up and paddled out at the pier, but I didn't actually make the outside until I was ~ 400 yards down the beach.  Meaty waves and current were punishing when Lucas and I got caught in a bad section.  The 5 of us had a ball since we didn't have to fight the current for a while and the bars along the way were serving up some challenging but fun stuff.  Pretty scary drops and hold downs but that is part of the fun.

Jace did some excellent camera work while shredding on his 7'8.


27th Lake Waccamaw windsurfing.
I talked to Jace Saturday morning and after a surf check the local crew planned to take a rest day to recover from Friday.  I was zapped so a little cross training sounded good to me.  I launched solo from the sail club.  Lots of rain but temps were mild and it was nice getting some bump n jump on the 85 and 94 liter boards.  Lots of ducks and turtles hanging out so they kept me company.  I didn't get the wind I was hoping for but hopefully I'll get to use my 370 mast before New Years.

28th OIB.  Marathon surf day 2.
Sunday morning Sandy was pushing out and I arrived to see some of the prettiest peeling lefts of the trip.  Jace stopped by after attending the early service for a surf check and we were stoked with conditions.  Now the wind was dead offshore and no current to speak of!  The surf hung in there until about 4pm and then flattened out with the high tide.  The perfect way to end the Sandy surfing experience.  Here is Jace on his longboard and more gopro action.


29-30th Belews Lake.  (Sandy hooks around to the north)
Leah made me come home :[  I left warm temps, sun and wind to come home to cold rain and wind.  So I switched from spring suit to 6mm full suit and hit the lake with the 4.7 and the 85/94L boards.  I have to say NW wind at Belews is not the ideal direction.  Even for NW this was an especially aggravating day.  The wind was so strong there were leaves being blown from one side of the lake to the other.  That is 1 mile.  Even with all that and gusts in the 30s and 40s it was basically unsailable (but I did anyway).  Tuesday on the other hand was super fun.  The wind clocked due west and this makes for great sailing south of the 2 big islands.  You get the best thigh high swell and ramps for right hand jumps of any direction in my experience.  That was the sixth day of water sports.  And on the seventh he rested.  (by raking lots of leaves).

The New Old Faithful

Meet the new to me Will Allison 8' magic stick.

Soooohhh many lefts

Day 2 Rafael location.  I have a 8'10 paddle board in Buxton that needs to be picked up.  I never missed it at all.

Shortboard Wavesailing

Keith says this is the best sesh of the year for him.  I think most would agree with him.  Lots of wavesailors and kiters out with side off conditions.  It was challenging getting out due to powerful current but the outside was very comfortable with my 5.0 and 94L board.  This was the next level for this humble beginner.

Keith's Photos



Some of my photos

Leslie Surf at the Point

Keith, Sam and I hit the point today for some light air wave sailing.  The sets were fun and we got a good wrap around the shoals the entire day.  Keith gets the style award but I am Mr Clean after going through the wash cycle so many times.  Ian, Ken A. and Sarah came out later so we pretty much had the whole point to ourselves.  Great times. Bill's blog has the goings on from the previous 2 days.

Keith's Point pics are here.  Nice!  Below are some of mine.

 Carnage

*

Isaac Makes a Pass

I spent 3 great days with the OIB crew this weekend.  Saturday was sooo clean and the sets started coming in early so I got about 10 hours of paddle surfing the Fanatic Prowave 8'10 not counting some time on Kyle's longboard when we traded off.  That longboard was a ton of fun and Kyle was stoked on the SUP too!  Sunday was another 9-10 hours of paddle surfing... bigger but not quite as clean since there was a little side-on chop to deal with.  Monday I got a 3 hour side to side-on wave sailing sesh in on the Prowave.  The size was still there and T-storms just inland stoked up a nice breeze.  What a fantastic way to cap off the last day before heading back to work.

Once again I was having too much fun to take many pics but I did get a few from Saturday.  Chris and I had the place to ourselves most of early Saturday and Jace made it a little later Saturday and Sunday.

Hilarious.

August Action

I drove through lots of mist and rain to get there but the skies opened and we had a beautiful sunny day Friday.  Sam, Ken and I had a blast at C hole and then evening action in the ocean.  Like Keith said- hey it is August, we're lucky to get any wind at all.  Well, since it has been a vacuum in Greensboro I wholly agree.

Keith and Andy had the higher wind before we got there.

Threes Company

Fity is on it!!!!!!!!!!

Step Into Ripple

The Hawaii and Mavericks crews have been hounding Leah for some time about us all getting out to Belews Lake to share tow in techniques but Leah's schedule is prohibitive.  Imagine- the biggest and smallest wave surfers in the world getting together to show that it is all about making the most of what you have.  Laird we'll make it work eventually.

ripple from rdm on Vimeo.

Leah learned short board wake surfing faster than I did when we first tried it with our friends Joe and Jennifer.  Adding the paddle gets you through chop from lots of summer boat traffic. 
  

The wave maker.  A 14' fiberglass tri hull with 40hp Suzuki.

The poor man's fat sack.  5 gallon water container.  We don't have to have it to surf but hey it also makes a nice cushion when the board is tight in the pocket.

Ocracoke Side-Off

Bill and I headed down to Ocracoke last Saturday afternoon to catch some side off conditions.  This was my first time making the trip so it was an adventure taking the ferry and driving to the south end of the island.  Conditions were nice when we rolled up- mostly waist high sets on a rising tide.  I rigged 4.7/85L and Bill was similar on a 91L twin.  My father in law made the trip to Hatteras with me this time.  His first time at the Outer Banks at all.  Rod took some good pics so here they are.  This was a short relaxing sesh before we hit old lighthouse again that evening.  Bill & Keith chronicle all the other days of action.  NE Day 1, Day 2, Day 3.


Photos by Rod Swonguer & Ralph


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 Rod.  Happy to away from blowing sand!

Who Needs Wind

This is the juice.

First Look at the Tabou DaCurve Quadster

This is some basic information on the 85L '12 Dacurve quadster via WindNC.  I do not have enough short board wave experience to say where the board ranks against others but since there is so little information out there on it I wanted to make this stuff available for anyone thinking of trying the board.  If you are lucky enough to have the opportunity certainly try a demo.

Though this is a DTL pure wave board I'm planning to use it as a do it all wave and high wind board.  I really like that it isn't so easy to get overpowered on the quads so high end range is nice.  I tried the 85L '11 Dacurve last Fall in gusty NE and felt comfy in the sound.  There are 5 fin boxes on the '12 so there are lots of experimental fin setups to try.

 

The '11 on the right is quad only.

The 85L comes stock with quad 9cm/16cm or thruster combo 9cm/18cm.  I'm not sure what the fin area works out to- I'm working on finding this out.  So far I have run standard quad in some side on chest to head high waves.  In flat water I tried standard 9cm/18cm thruster and even 16cm/18cm thruster.  You can imagine the lift you get from 2x16 + 1x18 fins.  I thought the drag was certainly noticeable but the upwind ability substantial.  With lighter wind and a 5.8 the board was still really maneuverable and it even helped with the pop for bump and jump.  This needs more testing but I liked the additional lift in light wind and the rear center fin seems more tolerant to imperfect board trim.  I was blown away with overall stability when slogging and had no trouble with helitacks.  Helitacks on a 85L board are not trivial so this must be a very forgiving platform.  I'm 70kg and though it never occurred to me to try I think I could even up haul on this puppy. 

One experiment that I'm also interested in trying is running quad with the 16s up front and 9s in back.  I know this also gives up tuned maneuverability but it would be interesting to see if this helps with upwind ability in side on conditions.  Here are some measurements I made on the bottom shape.

The first 3ft is mono concave like an upside down spoon.  Approaching the 4ft point a double concave begins that flows into a double concave with vee.  The vee becomes proud approaching the fins.

Near the fins

Spoon shape

High riding nose.

My initial experience on the board is really positive.  As a pure wave board it requires that you drive it almost exclusively with the front foot.  When the board is trimmed and gets planing the nose rides pretty high so this helps confidence in chop.  One thing I've heard from a number of folks is with quads you have to keep the board flat or the outside fin pair really lose their bite.  Waterturtle got to try one of these 91L with Matt P and had this to say about the board in HI.  The Aussies on the seabreeze forum put up some good information as well.

I have a prowave 122L SUP that I paddle surf and wave sail a lot.  This SUP has 5 fin boxes as well and this was one of the major reasons I thought I could get a ton of range out of the Tabou quadster.  I love a challenge and like to experiment so I'm excited to get dialed in and learn to handle any condition.  A pure wave board is way less tolerant to back foot sailing than the more FSW oriented shapes but it will be interesting how the thruster vs quad mode works out as I develop my style.  If you have any specific questions just post and I'll try to answer.  Any experienced wave sailing gurus that can comment on how this board compares to other similar boards please do.  It is getting more difficult to try before buying these days so sharing the information online is the next best thing.

The Starboard Quad IQ is a very interesting board to compare to the Tabou since the bottom shape seems to be the exact opposite flow.  One of my favorite things about Starboard is the information they make available.  ->

"Shape: Forward Vee that spirals into reduced vee between the feet and ending in a monoconcave in the tail. The forward vee increases the engaging rail's angle of attack when the board is carving, which creates extra drive into the turn. The monoconcave channels the water through the tail and allows for a flatter rocker for more speed and quicker planing. The tail rocker has extra tail kick to keep the board free and loose. Rails are soft and rounded like surfboards - keeps the ride flowing and smooth."

 

Starboard also has 3 fin suggestions for different conditions.  Keep in mind the mono concave tail of the Quad IQ tail is channeling water very differently than the Tabou Quadster vee with double concave tail.  I look forward to testing the DaCurve with the larger fins forward as Starboard suggests for on shore.

If anyone has ridden the Quad IQ and can comment on performance in a range of conditions please do.