I've used the same F2 wave board for 20+ years. I say wave but really it's just my high wind board.
Recently I upgrade to a used Quatro Quad Cube just because the opportunity was there.

Before I hit the water can anyone tell me what differences I can expect to feel when fast forwarding 2 decades in design?

I've always sailed with Ezzy wave sails around 5.5m in onshore bump and jump conditions, occasionally unhooking and surfing on ocean swell.

The old F2 is 82L, 256 x 55.5cm, with a vee hull and single 30cm (256sq.cm) fin
The new Cube is 84L, 229 x 57cm, with a double concave bottom and quad MFC 300 fins

Thanks in advance.

It'll fit in your car easier

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elmo said..
It'll fit in your car easier

That's it? 20 years of development and I could have just bought roof racks?

Could have just cut the nose off

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Imax1 said..
Could have just cut the nose off

LOL, I tried a few times with the mast and boom but the old F2 was made tough, not sure the new board will be as robust.

There's no way it will be as robust.

Realistically you'll probably find the old board will plane easier as it's a freeride board and your new one is a wave board.

Length will feel really weird as will the volume distribution/

On a wave, it should be all sh1tz and giggles, tighter turns

The F2 was their wave board...256 and 251.
Easier slogging and overpowered.
Cube easier in the midrange, better in slower, smaller surf.
Pure top speed favors F2.
Turning and jumps favor Cube.

You might need to learn to be lighter on the back foot and adopt a more upright stance with the quad when just sailing around, you can't push against the fins like you can with a big single. When it does spin out though it's usually not all the fins at once so it doesn't do the big let go of a single fin and is much easier to recover from.

In on-shore bump and jump, the older boards are pretty hard to beat. ;)

With the new board you have sort of gone from one end of the spectrum to the other. The quads are better for wave-riding, they hold the rail better (for their seize/width) and will make sharper turns while maintaining speed well. In a straight line they feel slower (board sits deeper in the water and you can't fly on the fin) and you'll sometimes stuff the short nose of the board into the water...

The proper answer here is that the new board might feel a bit weird at first - and that's because you will have to change your sailing stance.
In particular, the temptation will be to put your mast foot too far forwards on this new board - to match the old fashioned mast track position of the older board.

In short, you will need to unlearn your existing sailing stance and to now sail with a more upright rig, where the mast foot is closer to your front foot. That change will, in turn, mean a different boom height, and probably you'll need longer harness lines.

Once you get the handling skills sorted the new board should turn a lot better than your older one.

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Basher said..
The proper answer here is that the new board might feel a bit weird at first - and that's because you will have to change your sailing stance.
In particular, the temptation will be to put your mast foot too far forwards on this new board - to match the old fashioned mast track position of the older board.

In short, you will need to unlearn your existing sailing stance and to now sail with a more upright rig, where the mast foot is closer to your front foot. That change will, in turn, mean a different boom height, and probably you'll need longer harness lines.

Once you get the handling skills sorted the new board should turn a lot better than your older one.

This is the kind of answer I was hoping for, maybe I should have asked the question differently

Geez Knot, you're lucky it's lasted 20 years

My 2 favourite boards ever were a Maui Project and a Max2Air, both broke

Hope you enjoy your new ride, it will be great to progress forward I'm sure

The Quatro Quad of that age is one of my all time favourites as its pure wave but still faster rockered and good for B&J stuff. You will love it. It will do everything better, with the exception of flat out speed when crazy overpowered in chop - the old long skinny single fins are still the king there. But the turning will be so lovely, the increased upwind ability a total revelation compared to the old board, and almost auto-correct for spinout ... will be great. I doubt you will care about that one tradeoff (control in nuclear winds) when u are used to it.

Mast base behind centre.
Slightly bigger main fins might help, I liked my ones setup like that but its the perspective of a heavy guy waveriding in cross-on

A couple of years ago I went from a 2008 Exocet 83l/56cm board to a 2014 Goya One 86l/59cm. The Goya was a lot shorter, 226cm v 235cm of the Exocet. That felt odd. The Goya was wider at the back, so you could stand further back. The Goya had a very short planing flat section between the straps. The Exocet a longer planing flat. On the Goya, front foot in the strap, bear off a tiny bit, or on a bit of chop/swell, and it popped up onto the plane. Try to get it going if you had the front foot in front of the strap and it just buried the rocker under the mast track into the water and it wouldn't plane as easy as the Exocet. Its just a technique you will probably have to get used to on the Quatro as well.
Having the mast foot so close to the footstraps felt odd to start, it felt like catapults were only milli-seconds away, but in reality none happened.Boom height was lower, and my harness lines pushed together to make them a bit longer.
The footstraps are wider on the Quatro. For proper wave riding thats good, but for high wind & no wave riding I'm not so sure.
Like any board, play to its strengths and adapt to its weaknesses. But in the end, the lack of speed & upwind ability didnt make up for the extra manoeuvrability. It turned incredibly well on small waves even if you were going slow, but planing gybes were more difficult as it was so slow entering gybes.
So I got a Quatro Tetra instead. That has a longer planing flat and is better for what I want. If its just high wind and no wave, hopefully the Quatro wont be too wavy.

Are your Ezzy sails old as well? I went from 2005 vintage to 2016 and they were night and day. The old ones had a shallower profile with the CoE quite far back. The new ones were fuller at the front, and needed the mast foot further back in the track. If the previous owner had modern sails, where they put the mast foot (wear marks on the track) might not be the same as if you have old Ezzys.

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elmo said..
It'll fit in your car easier

It will need to, as nobody will steal the old F2 off the top of the car

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PhilUK said.. The footstraps are wider on the Quatro.

Can't say I ever noticed - and every board I've seen for years has been 150mm insert spacing, except Severne at 160, but with a spin around spaces in the strap that can achieve the same width as others. I suspect the Quatro will be a standard 150 also

I don't think the OP needs to worry about loose straps -just sail it

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Mark _australia said..

PhilUK said.. The footstraps are wider on the Quatro.

Can't say I ever noticed - and every board I've seen for years has been 150mm insert spacing, except Severne at 160, but with a spin around spaces in the strap that can achieve the same width as others. I suspect the Quatro will be a standard 150 also

I don't think the OP needs to worry about loose straps -just sail it

Sorry, wasnt clear, I meant distance from front to back straps, wider stance.

But as you mentioned it, Exocet have 160 between the plugs, which I like. Wider feet with 5mm boots and its still easy to get my feet in.

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Mark _australia said..
The Quatro Quad of that age is one of my all time favourites as its pure wave but still faster rockered and good for B&J stuff. You will love it. It will do everything better, with the exception of flat out speed when crazy overpowered in chop - the old long skinny single fins are still the king there. But the turning will be so lovely, the increased upwind ability a total revelation compared to the old board, and almost auto-correct for spinout ... will be great. I doubt you will care about that one tradeoff (control in nuclear winds) when u are used to it.

Mast base behind centre.
Slightly bigger main fins might help, I liked my ones setup like that but its the perspective of a heavy guy waveriding in cross-on

That all sounds very positive thank you. The factory fins which came with the board (MFC 300) are a bit beat up although I have since epoxied and sanded them back into shape. I'm a big guy at 94kg and staying upwind can be challenging in onshore conditions with an incoming tide. Would it be worth going to the MFC 350 size fins? I'm starting at leaning curve zero with quad fin setup.

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PhilUK said..
A couple of years ago I went from a 2008 Exocet 83l/56cm board to a 2014 Goya One 86l/59cm. The Goya was a lot shorter, 226cm v 235cm of the Exocet. That felt odd. The Goya was wider at the back, so you could stand further back. The Goya had a very short planing flat section between the straps. The Exocet a longer planing flat. On the Goya, front foot in the strap, bear off a tiny bit, or on a bit of chop/swell, and it popped up onto the plane. Try to get it going if you had the front foot in front of the strap and it just buried the rocker under the mast track into the water and it wouldn't plane as easy as the Exocet. Its just a technique you will probably have to get used to on the Quatro as well.
Having the mast foot so close to the footstraps felt odd to start, it felt like catapults were only milli-seconds away, but in reality none happened.Boom height was lower, and my harness lines pushed together to make them a bit longer.
The footstraps are wider on the Quatro. For proper wave riding thats good, but for high wind & no wave riding I'm not so sure.
Like any board, play to its strengths and adapt to its weaknesses. But in the end, the lack of speed & upwind ability didnt make up for the extra manoeuvrability. It turned incredibly well on small waves even if you were going slow, but planing gybes were more difficult as it was so slow entering gybes.
So I got a Quatro Tetra instead. That has a longer planing flat and is better for what I want. If its just high wind and no wave, hopefully the Quatro wont be too wavy.

Are your Ezzy sails old as well? I went from 2005 vintage to 2016 and they were night and day. The old ones had a shallower profile with the CoE quite far back. The new ones were fuller at the front, and needed the mast foot further back in the track. If the previous owner had modern sails, where they put the mast foot (wear marks on the track) might not be the same as if you have old Ezzys.

Interesting about the always pending catapult feeling , I'll keep that in mind when learning.

Yes, I did buy the new Ezzy Zeta. The marketing blurb said "The Zeta is a powerful wave sail designed for onshore conditions and heavier riders." so that seem to describe me perfectly.

They do recommend you buy a quad finned board at least 10 litres over body weight.

To get the quads planing you need to bear away heaps more than the traditional board and it'll feel sinky in the tail, like you are towing a bucket but once planing or on a wave then they are great.

Designs have come on a long way since those F2 boards and volume distribution and rocker etc have changed massively.

Realistically it will be your very high wind board now.

Should have maybe gone for the 106 litre version.

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Squid Lips said..
You might need to learn to be lighter on the back foot and adopt a more upright stance with the quad when just sailing around, you can't push against the fins like you can with a big single. When it does spin out though it's usually not all the fins at once so it doesn't do the big let go of a single fin and is much easier to recover from.

Yeah I have recently have done a similar progression. Yep picked up early on pushing against the fin doesn't work as well, unless i like spinning out. More about driving weight into the front and being more upright. Heaps of fun though.

I'm your weight, at 84L this board will be for high wind. A more general waveboard is 100-105L.
Sounds like you have plenty of wind though.

I really like K4 fins, they are durable and cheap.

Knotboard I have used that cube and really like it.
Its a good size for me in 18-25 knots. But I weigh 75kg.

I would agree with Madge that at 94kg its going to be a very high wind board for you. No need to change the fins but its going to be a struggle in marginal winds/onshore.

In about 13-18Knots I use a 93L quad.

The newer generation boards are lighter, but less robust at the same time. So if you just bump your cube on a rock or on the pavement, you will most likely get a ding or crack in your board. I love short boards and will never go back. Just expect to do more repairing with newer boards.

What to make of this: Mark says "the increased upwind ability a total revelation compared to the old board" but Phil states the poorer upwind ability of his multifin as one of its two major negatives.

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wendell said..
What to make of this: Mark says "the increased upwind ability a total revelation compared to the old board" but Phil states the poorer upwind ability of his multifin as one of its two major negatives.

Huh?

I replied to your PM reiterating what I had said earlier with this:

"my Exocet (single 21cm fin) went upwind better than the Goya One (thruster), mainly because it had a longer planing flat, no tail kick, sharper rails and was faster. I tried the Goya as a single fin (with the 23cm it came with, taking the 10cm thrusters out) and it made little difference. The Goya was supposed to be a FSW, but it was more like a wave board. It had a short 25cm flat and some tail kick. It was the rest of the board which made it slow, not fin configuration.
The sailor who has it now is about 15kg lighter than me and has better skills, and he is enjoying it.

I've no idea about the Quatro Cube."

Take the thrusters off the Goya to make it a single fin and it hardly changed its upwind ability.

You have both boards in front of you, so it should be easy for you to compare rockers, rail shape, volume distribution etc etc etc

I meant quads go upwind way better than other wave boards.

However, now starting to doubt this whole thread as I saw the double back strap and realised F2 waveboards and small freerides looked VERY similar then....I'm worried the OP didn't have a wave board at all....

Oh well, if it doesn't work out.....I'll buy the quad from you, as a community service

Get used to facial cramps (too much smiling) and a sore neck (whiplash from all the sharp turns).

I made the same change a season ago and now own 3 Quads, 1 Thruster, and have kept the old Angulo long and skinny single fin wave board just because I can. Its just going to become a museum piece I think.

The Quads are definitely slower in a straight line, but who cares when it seems like you have stepped off a bus and onto a skateboard.

Otherwise, what people said about stance and body/sail position is all true. Its different, and better once you learn it.