following on from the conversations in the reviews section,

show us your custom kit.

i've been having some fun of late helping design a freestyle board for "large" persons. pete at NXS is shaping the board and advising on the design outcomes.

the board was made as a protoype for a general purpose wave/freestyle baord for 100kg sailors (umm, Me ) looking for something slashy with a bit of speed

first version hit the water, was tested in different conditions then had some alterations made to the tail to improve tracking and early planing.

version 1 pictured with my custom 95lt fish beside it. graphics love them or hate them were aimed at making a statement.



version 1.1

(revisions effectively included adding some width to the tail and making the rear rails sharper by removing excess tuck).

has been on the water for a few weeks now and receiving very positive feedback from all that have ridden it.

at 120lt it planes up early, carves with ease and has plenty of speed for freeride blasting. i myself have used it in conditions ranging from no wind up to 25 knots on flat water through to knee high chop, with 6.4 and 5.8m sails and a 32cm mfc freewave and a 25cm mfc freestyle pro fin.

design wise, the board has very chunky rails. the first 3/4 of the board sees soft tucked rails that flow into hard rails between the straps and then through to a duck tail (will upload image once taken).

the rocker line is taken from a slalom template with a spiral V into flat plus double concaves through the middle

on the water the board feels like a freestyle board, it rides high and has that typical freestlye feel of a board that tracks well yet still feels skatey when needed.

the soft rails up front give the board a very comfitable ride. the board just eats chop and tracks with ease.

the board is also very slashy in the chop and gets back up to speed quickly.

what has surprised me with the design, is how well the board performs as an allround freeride board. what i have ended up with is a very comfortable board to sail which has increased my fun factor on the water. the board is easy, fun and enjoyable.

not content to stop there,

version 2

is currently on the shapers horse. (i think i am hooked )
to improve it's freestyle capabilities, we will be moving the straps further apart to assist popping.
An additional 1-2cm width will be added to the tail between the straps to improve the planning threshold further.
To counteract the extra volume the increased width will produce the tail is also being thinned out more.
additionally, 1cm of width will be taken out of the board and distributed throughout the length to improve it's slashyness (is that a word?)

version 2 will also have a new graphic if i can get to the screen printers in time.



i am sure others have been tinkering? what have you been building?

Hi Gestalt
If you have pics of my project (as i don't, feel free to put them up)
cheers

here ya go mate,

Thanks Gestalt,

Got, to ride it last Wednesday...10knts (maybe 12 in the puffs) got it planning and it felt really "slippery" in a good way. (Had to give it back for minor changes a magazine shoot and article. hope to have it this week)
Board is 120ltr x 2410 x 70 wide. slalom rocker ( or simply very flat ). Aimed very much at the larger fuller frame rider for a light to medium fast slalom board

cheers

tba

It's the middle one and the right is custom spray job on bottom of CA55.

Gestalt, that freestyle board looks pretty good. What are you doing with that humungous fin on it? Looks like it would work way better with something around 130-180.
How much does it weigh with straps and footpads by the way?
Cheers ,Hoop

Hi hoop,

yep that's a big fin, it's a 32cm MFC, works perfectly with the 6.4 in light winds for blasting. the smallest fin i've tried is a 25cm with the 5.8 and that felt great also, felt like it could have gone smaller.

the board probably weighs just over 7 kg since the reshape was done. i haven't weighed it, the next version will be more like 6.5kg

Hi Little Jon,

sweet paint job, and your custom board still looks new. is it a strapper?

Hi Windy,

lookin forward to it.

Gestalt, shape looks great, and the graphics (version 2 I mean)! It must be hugely satisfying sailing something you built yourself? I'd have no idea where to start, but might have to look a bit more into this...

I still have a lot of handtools left over from closing my joinery business, and I'm guessing I could apply my old hand skills into glass and foam...might have to get to know a board shaper and have a crack at it!

hi sailhack,

i can't take credit for building the board. but i've known pete for 20 years and have spent a lot of time hanging out in the shaping room and trying new boards / fins etc over that time. years back i halped hime with some surfboards so i can tell you my forte is not shaping.

with the boards above, i gave him a set of dims i was looking for and the type of rail i wanted. the rocker i completely leave up to him. that's very much an experience driven requirement. the tail on version 1 was pete trying something completely different. i am confident it would have worked very well on a bigger board but it wasn't quite right for the 120lt hence the mod.

i do the graphics in photoshop, then trace them in acad and sendthem off to the laser cutter to make the templates.

version 2 has a slightly different outline, i drew it in acad then templates are cut to match for the wire cutting of the foam.

here are some of the early graphics i did.






and the latest ones hopefully making their way onto the 09/10 gear.





still working on more of them.

Sorry about the crap photo,s . OES Speed Board , my design and beutifully built by Peter Ross.
If I put some straps on will it blow 30 knots?.
img]

Sorry, no fancy paint job here. Just 100% 80g/sqm UD carbon inlay fishbone layup/5 mm Corecell Sandwich.

107 liters HD Freestyle, 240 x 63 cm, 5.9 kg. Designed with Shape3D and handshaped by myself. Flat V-Shape similar to Tabou Freestyle.

Nice job Fred !

The second of the not so identical twins. 106 litre board aimed at light/medium wind GPS speed sailing and distance races. Sort of a scaled down Formula board , very wide,l ow nose rocker, very wide at 500 off the tail using the aggressive wingers and cutouts to reduce the area in the tail.




Again designed by me on CAD and beautifully built by Peter Ross at OES.

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Fredstyles said...

Sorry, no fancy paint job here.

nice job fred you deserve some credit for getting the board down to 5.9kgs, and is that with or without pads and straps,(remember epoxy is porous (hope you sealed it after sanding it back to the glass) is there some extra strap ancore points so you can move them out, cos it looks like a quick rocker & strait outer profile, well done

Fred, to me that is a very sweet looking board. Well done!!!

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mr love said...

The second of the not so identical twins. 106 litre board aimed at light/medium wind GPS speed sailing and distance races. Sort of a scaled down Formula board , very wide,l ow nose rocker, very wide at 500 off the tail using the aggressive wingers and cutouts to reduce the area in the tail.

Again designed by me on CAD and beautifully built by Peter Ross at OES.

have you sailed these boards yet martin, and whats there weight, they look great, nice low profile, and i like the fin forward, that should help stop the nose hovering when the wind gets up

Hi keef,

weight is without straps. The board has a clear 2K-PU-coating and comes with chinook inserts. plugs are 5-hole.

The Heavy Duty construction has multiple stringers, additional carbon reinforcements and heavy pvc-insert-blocks.

Hey Keef, Yes unfortunately she hasn't been wet yet. Fin is not really forward, just the camera distortion. Rear edge is 90mm from the tail.
6.3 kg,s with pads,without straps. Really happy, Peter did a great job, it,s pretty accurate to my design. Very keen to see how it goes as it is a bit different to the norm.
The Speed board just looks like an absolute weapon. I took it out of the box and went..... "this thing is going to kill me" Fast.......

Oh sorry Keef, saw the rest of the question. Speed board is 4.5 kg,s with pads less straps.

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Fredstyles said...

Hi keef,

weight is without straps. The board has a clear 2K-PU-coating and comes with chinook inserts. plugs are 5-hole.

The Heavy Duty construction has multiple stringers, additional carbon reinforcements and heavy pvc-insert-blocks.

thats light for all the extra's, what are you useing for stringers , i use hollow 8mm carbon tubeing they use in kites and lay them up under pressure

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mr love said...

Oh sorry Keef, saw the rest of the question. Speed board is 4.5 kg,s with pads less straps.

4.5 with pad's is incredible, don't leave it on the beach without a rig it will blow away, it's obvious pete has saved weight on the layup, but if its for flat water thats all the better

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keef said...

thats light for all the extra's, what are you useing for stringers , i use hollow 8mm carbon tubeing they use in kites and lay them up under pressure

Sounds interesting but I am not sure I got it right. Maybe a pic could help me to understand the tube stringers.

My stringers are made of the same unidirectional carbon fiber inlays I use for the hull.

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Gestalt said...


Hi Little Jon,

sweet paint job, and your custom board still looks new. is it a strapper?

It's a wind action from about '89 (ex team board hence the NP logo) it's still looks ok beacause i had a seventeen year break until 2 years ago.

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Fredstyles said...

keef said...

thats light for all the extra's, what are you useing for stringers , i use hollow 8mm carbon tubeing they use in kites and lay them up under pressure

Sounds interesting but I am not sure I got it right. Maybe a pic could help me to understand the tube stringers.

My stringers are made of the same unidirectional carbon fiber inlays I use for the hull.

(unidirectional meens the fibers are going in one direction,meaning strength in one direction)the rods are the same as your hollow carbon battens in race sails butt 8mm, super stiff and light,there inserted into the deck from the mast step to the nose after the board is layed up with the bottom glassed and before the deck is laminated, use a router bit about 7mm so its 8mm undersize useing some weights to to hold the stringer down( i used two tool boxes) and glue with fgi 45, its a glue thats like jelly and wont sink into the core and sets rock hard, use the block of foam you cut the blank of so you don't change the rocker with the weights

The Slalom board got wet, I,m grinning. I have placed a report in the Gear Review section.

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Little Jon said...



It's the middle one and the right is custom spray job on bottom of CA55.

hey jon, i remember routing the fin boxes and footstrap plugs into that board for the wind action catalogue photo shoot, the shaper billy riddell shaped it for himself and at the time it was cutting edge! good to see it in unfaded condition!

cheers ian.

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Gestalt said...



version 1 graphics love them or hate them were aimed at making a statement.





i am sure others have been tinkering? what have you been building?

these boards look great with a classy professional finnish i love the graphics and i imagine there the same on the water. are the graphics a vinal transfer, ive priced them from our local guy and there heeps expensive