Merimbula Beach, Bar Beach, Merimbula Point
29 Nov 08

Conditions: Very light offshore wind. Fat, knee high waves.

I woke for the mega early, checked the surf and was a bit despondent of what to do as there were next-to-no waves. I walked back to cabin where AA suggested I take the Predator for a spin. Woo hoo - why didn’t I think of that.

I carry it across the road and down the beach, feeling like a full on iron-man - machine on shoulder, paddle casually swaying in other hand. DJ stops me half way and takes about 100 photos.

I get to the water, jump on this beast of a board and ... oh no ... my Guy Leech aspirations are quickly extinguished ... I fall, fall again, get up for a sec then fall again. I can’t do this - I am a kook.

If you’ve ever read Stuey’s description of the design concept of this board - you will know it is OK for it to roll sideways to an extent - you just have to trust it to stop rolling before it flips over - because it wont - that's how he has designed it. Having that trust is the tricky bit. It’s very tempting to roll to a point, think it will never stop rolling, then jump off - before it has a chance to correct itself. Once I found that trust, I was sweet. Relax, move with it, don’t jump off - scaredy cat.

Now I’m up and paddling through some tiny waves near the shore. It slices through them with its razor sharp bow - easy.

I get out the back in the flat water, stroke, stroke, stroke - glide, glide, glide - nice. This is one beautiful machine - both to look at and to drive. The smoothness and power it generates is awesome.

I paddle up and down the beach, then over to a sheltered cove where DJ, Helke and Boylos all took it for a short spin. None of them seemed to have as much trouble as me getting up and running!

I get back on and the four of us paddle out towards the end of the point together - beautiful scenery and easy paddling on a 16 footer.

I leave the others, paddle towards the middle of the bay and run with the little swell back to the beach. You can almost paddle as fast as runners when they are that small and your board is that long. That was fun.

I try catching a few waves as it has picked up a little since I started out. That was not fun. Very hard to keep your balance, re-position the board and negotiate sections. I reckon you’d have to have a lot of practice to be able to ride a broken wave more than a foot high.

Overall: It was an absolute pleasure to paddle such an awesome machine.

Highs:
- Incredible glide
- Awesome speed to paddle power ratio
- Tracks really well (don’t need to swap hands very often)
- Unreal to look at

Lows:
- A bit scary to stand on (first time)
- Hard to do big bottom turn/re-entry combos on waves