Yeehaw kinda downwinder.

Great stuff!!

Looks like so much fun!! Can someone please organize a dw race across the bay so everyone can come down and enjoy some of this fun!!

Yahoo!

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HumanCartoon said..

paul.j said..
Looks like so much fun!! Can someone please organize a dw race across the bay so everyone can come down and enjoy some of this fun!!

The biennial Melbourne MAD Paddle Jacko, next March (weekend of 19th/20th) . Put it in your diary.

Will it be a race this year or charity fundraiser with no race results recorded?

Great vid. You've really got that board dialled in now, DJ. The new Javelin Maliko is apparently going to be 2 inches narrower. So I'm guessing that your balance skills are going to get a workout soon :)

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tightlines said...
That run is so much fun, I really enjoyed the one I had on your old glide DJ, thanks again for that.
It is so much different than our DWer's over here, which are also great fun but more technical.

No probs.. Let's hope we see you back over this way again one day..

Can't wait DJ, will chat tomorrow hopefully.

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DavidJohn said...

Area10 said...
Great vid. You've really got that board dialled in now, DJ. The new Javelin Maliko is apparently going to be 2 inches narrower. So I'm guessing that your balance skills are going to get a workout soon :)

Thanks A10.. The new Jav Maliko looks awesome from the little I've seen in pics.. I can't wait to see one in real life.. If it was 27-28" I'd have one on order but I'm thinking 26" is going to be a little tippy for this wobbly old fart.. So I'll be sticking with my 28" wide Jav until I get to demo one.. I'd love to see them do a 28" version of the Jav Maliko in the GX construction.. I've heard the 26" is very stable but that's what they said about my LEX26 Jav and I find that pretty tippy.. I know this new one is very different but I'm very happy with my current 2015 Jav

Yeah, I feel exactly the same really. I'm a "wobbly old fart" too. There are quite a lot of us... I'm hoping that the broad tail and hard rails throughout the Jav Maliko will give it more stability than usual for a 26" width board. After all, the 14x28 that you have feels almost as stable as some 14x30 boards. But I'm wondering if these narrow widths are a deliberate ploy by Naish to put the "elite" back into the Javelin name. Maybe videos of "wobbly old farts" on their top-shelf boards is not what they want to see. Or maybe they are on a biannual schedule where they will appeal to bigger guys one year and then Lenny-sized ones the next. Whatever, I can't see there being much demand for a 14x24 DW board. That will take some serious skills in typical ocean conditions and most of the people who have the disposable income to buy a specialist DW board are, err... well, let's just say that they have a few years of earning behind them. And the logistics of DWing don't make it easy for kids to do.

I'm hoping to be able to demo one in a couple of months. Demos are hard to come by in Europe. As you say, a 26" (or 24") wide DW board would really need testing before buying. It's an awful feeling to be 2 miles into a 10 mile run in high winds, only to realise that you've overestimated your own skills and underestimated the conditions, watching your friends disappear towards the horizon as you clamber back onto your board, knackered, for the umpteenth time.

A friend of mine who is quite a competent DWer by UK standards but who is 6ft 3" tall recently went on a DW with me that was in the typically very confused waters we have round here. It was about 25-30 knots and the bumps were waist-high, and for some reason it was even more confused than usual. He was on a Mk 2 Glide (27.25" wide). He reckons he fell in excess of 40 times. Anyone who has had a run like that will know how totally soul-destroying it is. And slow. So stable DW boards for taller people are a godsend.

My local shop has had SO much interest in the Surftech Bark Downwinder board. It is 28" wide and stable for even intermediates. It is also good value by today's standards. And can double up as a good touring board. So I'm a bit baffled when brands seem to concentrate on the fantastically elite boards (which surely a 24" wide DW board is likely to be) for which the market must be tiny, rather then bread-and-butter ones for non-elites. But maybe I just haven't seen the rest of the 2016 Naish range yet. Or maybe there are hoards of 140lb serious downwinding folk with big bank balances out there in the world who I just don't know about.

*Most* folk seem to find boards in the 27-28" range quite challenging enough in decent ocean DW conditions. But maybe the new Javs are aimed at inland DWing in small conditions. There does seem to be a gap in the market there, perhaps. Although how big a market it is, I'm not sure. I guess we will find out in 2016. I think even an old fart like me could handle 26" wide board in lined-up inland conditions, so maybe that's Naish's reasoning. The inland market is much larger than the ocean one worldwide, and the winds inland in most areas are lighter than over the ocean, so unless you live in a Hood River or similar, you are not going to need a heavily-rockered stable SIC.