PhilUK forum posts in last 60 days

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mathew said..
The SWB sizes are different for each brand of vehicle... spinter, hiace, iload, etc...

Buy a tape-measure.

They are indeed. My LWB VW Caddy is shorter than the VW T5 SWB. I took my longest board to see if it fitted into the van before I bought it. You cant rely on manufacturers specs. The 490cm mast fitting into the van was a guess, but it fitted straight in and not at an angle like I thought it might have to.

I've got a VW Caddy. Its the LWB version of the Caddy, but still shorter than a T5 SWB van. Its got a cargo bulkhead protecting the front from flying bits and pieces. The longest board I put in it was a 242cm long, but that had to go on the floor as the space gets smaller higher up you go. All the boards go in at an angle. A 2 piece 490cm mast goes in just about, but I had to cut a hole in the cargo bulkhead, the end of the mast sits in the shelf at the front.

For Tabou's constructions, MTE isnt a sandwich construction. Its a lot of fibreglass on a EPS core and looks to have wood reinforcement on the rear half of the deck (its not full deck). Cheap to make but heavy.

LTD is PVC sandwich, fibreglass deck and hull with some carbon reinforcements under the footstraps and mast track.

Team is PVC sandwich, carbon innegra deck and fibreglass hull.

Personally, I wouldnt buy a board which doesnt have PVC sandwich deck and hull. Too heavy and I remember the benefits of sandwich construction from my school days in woodwork/physics lessons.

All my freeride/slalom/freerace boards since 2008 have been PVC sandwich and full carbon deck and hull, feels light and stiff. I've never had a problem with boards buckling like yours did. They are more fragile to knocks, but not too bad in general. Im not hard on boards like jumping, but just blasting in chop/flat water. Its mostly catapult damage after hitting something in the water.

These days its only top of the range slalom boards which are full carbon, deck and hull. A lot are carbon deck, fibreglass hull. Some brands top construction are now PVC & fibreglass deck and hull with some carbon reinforcements, they dont use carbon as its expensive. Well, it isnt that expensive, but by the time % profit margins have been added + taxes it mounts up.

If you are worried about durability, go for a LTD type construction. Although I've noticed some brands LTD do look very light, considering
they are fibreglass. Makes me wonder how they have shaved off the weight.

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Kasper79 said..
When Vincent and Mortefon joins something must be very good.

By that logic, they weren't very good up to now?

I'd wager money was part of the reason for joining North. From GPS speeds people have posted, compared to their best and others on the water, the sails arent 'game changers'. I think Pierre Mortefon will be there or thereabouts this year, like the past 2 years.

He won 3 out of 4 Slalom-X events, convincingly.
www.pwaworldtour.com/index.php?id=38&tx_pwaevent_pi1%5BshowUid%5D=357&cHash=c9720a68c542213e603b7dd18e1a98cf
www.pwaworldtour.com/index.php?id=38&tx_pwaevent_pi1%5BshowUid%5D=376&cHash=60b05754214a2c9026a91a99d3dc778d
www.pwaworldtour.com/index.php?id=38&tx_pwaevent_pi1%5BshowUid%5D=375&cHash=7536db71dbd81a11b18b43b0ac90505d

2nd in the other, just missed out
www.pwaworldtour.com/index.php?id=38&tx_pwaevent_pi1%5BshowUid%5D=359&cHash=caad02636580af46a906c7d26caf8b10

Seems a long time ago I read this, and it was, 3 1/2 years.
www.windsurf.co.uk/lowdown-north-3di-technology/

The future of windsurfing, proven sailing technology for 45,000 miles trouble free sailing and a load of hype. Described by some users as game changing, but when you look at the GPS speeds nothing out of the ordinary.

After developing the sails with well documented failures along the way, they now employ someone to race their kit at the PWA slalom. No lesser person than 4 times champ Pierre Mortefon, who in recent years had a few forced changes in equipment manufacturers and coped admirably. Im looking forward to see how it all goes.

Hopefully there will be events to watch. Just Fuerteventura & Tenerife for Slalom-X, Sylt and Japan for foil slalom. I saw something about the Aruba Youth event being upgraded to Pro Slalom-X, and a Qatar foil slalom event recently,
www.windsurf.co.uk/pwa-2026-tour-calendar/
but its not on the PWA Event Schedule.
www.pwaworldtour.com/index.php?id=2365

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AoetearoaSailor said..
This kind of gybe is brilliant at maintaining mast foot pressure and driving the board through this nasty chop and maintaining speed BUT I suspect the power factor combined with the conditions, means that when it does go wrong, it goes massively wrong with a big bang. I actually thought the problem with the first crash was that I wasn't committing to the gybe enough, but I think I've nixed that idea now.

Previously I used a more 'open sail' gybe technique here, keeping the rig in front of me and bouncing over the evil chop, but was told sheeting in and laying it down was better It certainly looks cooler, haha...

Any tips or advice, or should I just lay off the committed semi-laydowns at this particular location. Boards are Tabou Rocket Plus 113 with GA Cosmic 8.3 in ~16-18 kts wind (foot damage) and Tabou 3s 107 with GA Hybrid 6.4 in ~22-25 kts wind (concussion).

I had a go on a Tabou Rocket Plus and found it had quite low nose rocker and shoulders. Same as one of my boards, Exocet S3.
This made gybing in chop harder. So I mostly avoided that by sailing on flatter spots, but when no choice, I had to modify technique and not repeat errors.
1st gybe here I had the old rear foot right behind the opposite front strap, so weight more forward, and didnt bank the board so much, probably contributing more to the failure. So the nose just ploughed into a chop and board stopped. 2nd gybe was ok. Neither at high speed, but reckon the same would apply at higher speeds.

Your second crash on the 3S not down to board design, just hitting chop at speed I reckon. Bend the knees a lot, or just avoid gybing into large chop. Plenty of gybe technique videos from coaches on the net saying look to the exit and not at the sail but I reckon in chop its best to look through the sail to spot chop, and flip the rig when on the downwind side of a chop.

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