So I recently developed some light wind envy, as I was sailing my usual lightwind setup (RRD Firemove 135 with an Ezzy Cheetah 9.5 and 52cm race fin) but a couple of other sailors could get planing much earlier, using a Hypersonic and some kind of Formula board with similar size sails.So looking at the specialist light air boards like the JP Super Lightwind or the Duotone blast, they're great looking but pushing 3k US. Trying to find a weird old formula board would work, but the used market by me is dry.

So I started wondering if I already had at least part of a solution in house, as the board I learned on is a Bic Nova 170l, which is 94cm wide which seems like it should help planing early. The issues are a) it's quite heavy b) it only has a trim box rear fin (with US box center fin for some reason) I do know that later versions of this board (and the Bic Techno Formula 170 which shares a shape) came with a tuttle box fin. The stock fin is very stubby and low aspect, so I don't know how well it will plane up.

Does anyone have opinions on whether this is worth trying to make into a light air blaster? I really like the early planing with my 52cm slalom fin, but it's tuttle so won't fit. Looking around, trimbox fins only seem to go up to 48cm. Is this because the shorter box head is prone to damage with bigger fins? Or would such a wide board plane earlier, even with a shorter fin?

I could also just put a tuttle box in there and find a used monster 65cm fin for it then. If I go that route, then would it be worth putting in something like the blue planet foil box? Would this board even foil? It's probably 13kg so not sure if it would be good to fly.

Really jsut want a sanity check to see if this is going to plane earlier. 9.5 is sadly my most used sail around here as it's pretty light. I also have a foilboard but depth and weeds make that a non starter for many of my favorite spots.

I would try it out and get a bigger fin if you like it. Formula and hypersonic need to be pumped on to a plane,short and wide. A longer board will glide on to a plane gradually. You need light weight for early planing.

A couple things spring to mind. The weight won't be a big factor. It's more about how flat the rocker is. Installing a Tuttle box is a good idea , however doing it on a plastic coated board is not easy or ideal.
I would try both boards , back to back, in marginal winds. If the BIC plane's earlier, a bigger fin will help a little but not much. Go down wind deeper to get going. A bigger fin will be better to push off ,once going ,to gain ground again.A bigger fin will allow you to plane at a slower speed and will make the board feel lighter.
If you're on the heavy side , a formula or super wide board is not your answer. Longer and flatter is. Depending on the rocker ,a fin modified BIC could be a good thing.

Cheers all, and thanks! Compared to my RRD I'd say it's flatter in the back 2/3 and more rocker up front.

Hoping for good wind towards the end of this week so will try both boards and see what shakes out.

As for the construction, it seems like this board is fiberglass covered in ABS, can I just sand off the ABS if I end up putting a fin or foil box in there? That's a really good point on the construction that I hadn't thought about. Epoxy tends to stick to most things if you prep it right, but then again I've never tried on a Bic.

It's more like peeling the outer skin off. It's quite thick. Resin won't stick to it. If I was to install a box, (id go Chinook), I would carefully remove the skin about an inch around the box. Then lam over the new box and where you removed the outer skin. Same needs to be done on the top of the board.

A free race board compared to a full on slalom board which has harder rails etc will not plane as quick.

Get yourself a 135 litre Patrik slalom board and use a 50 carbon fin.

The boards are light and still quite durable and work amazing in really light conditions.

Make sure you tune your sails with as less outhaul as you can manage which will add power.

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Imax1 said..
A couple things spring to mind. The weight won't be a big factor. It's more about how flat the rocker is. Installing a Tuttle box is a good idea , however doing it on a plastic coated board is not easy or ideal.

^^^ +1 My thoughts too

If its flat from front of box to 700 - 900mm its worth a go. But large trimbox fins = hard = using Select heads = $$$$$$
doing any work of placcy boards is a waste of time unless you realllly have to

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Pcdefender said..
A free race board compared to a full on slalom board which has harder rails etc will not plane as quick.

You're confusing tuck with a hard rail edge.
So, yeah they can.

That BIC is for beginners hence the dagger box. It has some strap positions for freeride, but are they, and mast track, optimised for early planing and performance? That fin looks ****e for planing, its for beginners. Once planing, what will it feel like? Large and cumbersome I bet.

For best early planing in light winds and large sails I think you need a wide tail, large carbon fin, mast track back a bit more than usual, and straps positioned on the rail to get control over that large fin. A light board helps. Maximising light wind performance is all about the sum of small improvements to all areas.
I reckon you will be better off looking for a more performance oriented board.
In 2006 I bought an Exocet S4, just 125l, 235cm long and 80cm wide, but had a OFO of 57.3cm. Thin rails, so gybes nicely as well. I used it with a 9.4m 2 cam Tushingham and 53cm Select fin. The Tush was a bit crap TBH, COE moved about all over the place. I sold the board in 2009 for a Fanatic slalom board.
In 2016 I was looking for another light wind board, and spotted an as new S4, same year as the other S4 I had, on EBAY. It was really cheap. I use it with 8.5m Ezzy Lion and Drake 46cm DW fin. It goes great in light winds. Before I bought a foil board, I used it for 20% of my sailing.
Its got a short planing flat, so is quite lively once going. Video is the 1st run on a light wind day (not that exciting) You can see where the water is hitting the hull once going, under the straps. It feels like a smaller board. It glides through lulls, 1/2 way along the first run the wind had gone. 2nd half of the run back in a gust and it rattled along. Its fun to sail.

Couple of pics from the 1st time I used it, straps at the back and on the rail, and a later video. Note mast track right at the back then.






?si=nW9UBbJhDPiMh2z0

ps. Dont get a Duotone Blast, the tail width isnt up to much. The Jag would be better, and is what you probably meant to say as the largest is the old light wind board like the JP SLW.

It's a very odd board. I got into windsurfing buying it as part of a package when I really just wanted something to SUP on vacation. Ended up getting hooked even though I mostly flogged about in 2kts trying to make it back to the beach on summer trips. Haven't really sailed this board since I got the RRD and have learned to plane, so really curious to see it again. Later this week I'm going to try back-to-back sailing the RRD (85cm wide) vs this thing (94cm wide) and see how it goes.

Partly keen to try swapping the tuttle box in just to see how it works as I have the board and have a ton of composite equipment from work.

I see that Chinook makes a standard (not deep) tuttle box that is a whole lot less structure than the foil tuttle boxes I've been looking at. Is there any way this board would ever foil to justify going with the foil box?

I doubt you see any performance increase and swapping the box will be a pain.
Sell it and put the money towards a larger slalom or free race board.

Conversely look for a raceboard, you'd be shocked at how well they plane but it's a different feeling.

A real tuttle box is worth more than the board. Don't think it's worth it.

I had the formula version with a deep tuttle box. The first formula version had a 70 cm trim box, which was prone to failure due to the extreme leverage of such a long fin. The second (and last) version was provided with a 70 cm deep tuttle fin and was better.
It was an extremeley early planing board, even more that my following JP SLW, but it had two flaws. The rails were the opposite of rounded (see pictures), more like a wedge, and really gripped on the water, so it planed early but as soon as the wind was stronger than 15 knotes it basically only went upwind. I never experienced such a tight upwind course, it really felt like it was going against the wind. The second flaw, it was very heavy and difficult to carry and maneuver. I sold it and replaced it with a JP SLW 165, which is more reasonable and I still have.
It's 100% correct that BIC used the mould of the 170 to make the Nova. The material the Bic is made of is not epoxy friendly, because it doesn't stick. It's for sure easier to make a trim boxed longer fin. But beware of breakage. Apart from that, if you use it with a 50-55 cm fin, it's a good lightwindish board.

THat's great info thanks! My local shop (Isthmus in WI in the US) is bringing in a 50cm trim box fin for me. Once it comes in I'll report back.

You're all probably right about the returns on putting in a foil box, I was honestly mostly curious to see how the install would go.

Brienno

By the way, you are completely accurate about 2 details:

The rails are like mold lines and the shape looks like a suction cup viewed from behind.

The weight is a lot, and it's super awkward to move. When I first started I had to carry the board and rig ~.4km to the water. Beginnging WS is exhausting enough so nothing like starting out tired!

Hoping to get the new fin before it freezes up and will get some numbers and pics of it out there. Cautiously optimistic I can get some planing when it's too light for my other big board and too weedy for foil.

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Kristo said..
So I recently developed some light wind envy, as I was sailing my usual lightwind setup (RRD Firemove 135 with an Ezzy Cheetah 9.5 and 52cm race fin) but a couple of other sailors could get planing much earlier, using a Hypersonic and some kind of Formula board with similar size sails.So looking at the specialist light air boards like the JP Super Lightwind or the Duotone blast, they're great looking but pushing 3k US. Trying to find a weird old formula board would work, but the used market by me is dry.

So I started wondering if I already had at least part of a solution in house, as the board I learned on is a Bic Nova 170l, which is 94cm wide which seems like it should help planing early. The issues are a) it's quite heavy b) it only has a trim box rear fin (with US box center fin for some reason) I do know that later versions of this board (and the Bic Techno Formula 170 which shares a shape) came with a tuttle box fin. The stock fin is very stubby and low aspect, so I don't know how well it will plane up.

Does anyone have opinions on whether this is worth trying to make into a light air blaster? I really like the early planing with my 52cm slalom fin, but it's tuttle so won't fit. Looking around, trimbox fins only seem to go up to 48cm. Is this because the shorter box head is prone to damage with bigger fins? Or would such a wide board plane earlier, even with a shorter fin?

I could also just put a tuttle box in there and find a used monster 65cm fin for it then. If I go that route, then would it be worth putting in something like the blue planet foil box? Would this board even foil? It's probably 13kg so not sure if it would be good to fly.

Really jsut want a sanity check to see if this is going to plane earlier. 9.5 is sadly my most used sail around here as it's pretty light. I also have a foilboard but depth and weeds make that a non starter for many of my favorite spots.

I have exactly the same board, although I haven't sailed it for years.

Yes, changing to a 50cm fin will make it come alive. It is still a heavy board, but you will find it can suddenly go upwind and downwind better and carry bigger sails.

One of my earliest windsurfing memories was rigging up the Nova with a 7.5m sail and going sailing and planing easily while all the other guys with small boards and sails were sitting on the fence.

I switched to a 50cm fin and from memory it was a pretty good move. If you are adventurous you can try and 'rebox' a tuttle fin into a trimbox using one of those older Select adapters if you can find one: i think I was lucky and found a fin manufacturer that just happened to have 50cm trimbox fins.

www.shq.com.au/products/select-finbase-adaptor-power-tuttle-trim?srsltid=AfmBOoomZ_KhKcQMVRgMVPsjHC0kLSy1GR7emksYt7wOCEqMlpxyf3D6

As others have said, it is a plastic board, so changing finbox is not really an option.

It won't fly upwind and downwind like a formula board with the 50cm fin in it, but more like a free-ride board, but still fun. I never tried a 70cm on it, and I wonder if the box would handle it as its very different to tuttle. (Obviously you are going to leave out the middle fin too. If you haven't figured it out already, the centre fin was meant to let beginners go upwind more easily before they had the technique sorted out. I can't imagine what it would do if you had a bigger fin as well as the centre fin.)

That's awesome info, thank you very much. Always nice to hear that sort of thing after you place the fin order, rather than "don't bother it flies apart over 10kts" Hoping to get the fin in a week or two and am going to hope the water stays soft long enough to try it out for some light wind.

Had to report back here after I got so much good info from you all. Tried the Bic Nova with a 56cm carbon fin I found and it's actually quite good at what I was hoping it would do.

Forecast was for big breeze and I'd packed the day ahead with small sails and was about to head out when my buddy asked if I was bringing the Bic, as he knows I'd been itching to try it. Glad he did as the forecast chopped the wind speed in half.

It's a big pain to load and handle but on the water it's a super easy way to get around in light air. Puffs were like 10kts, mostly 6kts which normally would hurt but I got a couple great long runs. It's very strange when it gets planing, it kind of shakes for a bit (?) and then slowly builds speed until you're just kind of floating along at ~15kts. My buddy was on foil with an 8.5 and said he thought he was barely foiling more than I was planing so it definitely works for the light stuff. Couple other sailors were out on big boards and not planing but that was after I got off the water so who knows.

Anyway, great suggestions and I think this thing is a keeper! My buddy loaned me a 10.0 which I'm trying to find a boom and mast for which I think will be a good pairing for this board. Only issue I had was the old footstraps, even maxed out were quite sticky with my boots so I've got to change those. That and FA-18s keep trying to land on it which is annoying.

Stay away from heavy. You want light & wide. Formula boards are tricky to sail. JP SLW is awesome as is SB US147. Aim for 90+ wide. I ran SB US147 with 44 carbon fin in light winds and G10 52 as well. But only up to 8.2sails. Now foiling is the only thing to do. They will be on 9.5 & fin and you could be on 7-7.5 and flying the whole time with limited dredging. we foil 99% now and fin at the best locations or I fin if NOOBs are looking for a buddy to show them the ropes

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Kristo said..
....

Anyway, great suggestions and I think this thing is a keeper! My buddy loaned me a 10.0 which I'm trying to find a boom and mast for which I think will be a good pairing for this board. Only issue I had was the old footstraps, even maxed out were quite sticky with my boots so I've got to change those.

I wonder how the 10m will work with it. The most I used with it was a 7.5m, but I have used from 12.5m down to 9m on a formula board. I suspect that the 10m will be too big to have much fun and I am guessing that the fin won't be big enough for that size sail.

If I had to sail this as a freeride type board I would aim for 8.5m or so. Big, but not too big to be unwieldy.

I have had some great sessions in very light wind on a formula board and a 9m sail, but the bigger sails made it more into a machine that wanted to go straight upwind. I guess it all depends on wind strength too and what you want to get out of it.

The straps are more inboard than a formula board so that may also affect the size sail you can get away with.

Also, if you change the straps, I think this is one of those boards where the straps have anti-twist washers and the deck has matching indendations. If so, be sure to transfer them across to the new straps as it is easy to twist the straps on these things and not so fun when you are hiked out and trying to get into the straps.

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FormulaNova said..

Kristo said..
....

Anyway, great suggestions and I think this thing is a keeper! My buddy loaned me a 10.0 which I'm trying to find a boom and mast for which I think will be a good pairing for this board. Only issue I had was the old footstraps, even maxed out were quite sticky with my boots so I've got to change those.

I wonder how the 10m will work with it. The most I used with it was a 7.5m, but I have used from 12.5m down to 9m on a formula board. I suspect that the 10m will be too big to have much fun and I am guessing that the fin won't be big enough for that size sail.

If I had to sail this as a freeride type board I would aim for 8.5m or so. Big, but not too big to be unwieldy.

I have had some great sessions in very light wind on a formula board and a 9m sail, but the bigger sails made it more into a machine that wanted to go straight upwind. I guess it all depends on wind strength too and what you want to get out of it.

The straps are more inboard than a formula board so that may also affect the size sail you can get away with.

Also, if you change the straps, I think this is one of those boards where the straps have anti-twist washers and the deck has matching indendations. If so, be sure to transfer them across to the new straps as it is easy to twist the straps on these things and not so fun when you are hiked out and trying to get into the straps.

It was pretty good with a 9.5 to be honest. I spend WAY too much time with that sail, so having a nice wide early planer to go with it is going to be helpful around here. I've also got a 135l RRD Firemove, and my next board down is a 117 Goya Bolt. The Bolt was my "small" board last year but I think I'll be using it with up to 8m. Kinda puts the RRD in a weird spot as it's kind of in the crossover between this thing and the Bolt, but it was my first "real" ws board so I love it.

Unfortunately the straps are max outboard. I used them a bit but they were super sticky to my boots and it was quite light so I was fine out of the straps just chugging along.

I have a foilboard as well but am not sure I like foiling as much as I like fin, so having the option to do either one when it's light (it's always light) will be cool. Really think this thing is going to help for our conditions, and considering I bought it years ago to use as a paddleboard for less than the cost of a good bottle of wine it feels pretty decent.

What I really want to see is what happens if this thing is overpowered, may be exciting.