Kev Pritchard recently placed 3rd in Cabo Verde on one of these - his twinsers didnt show up on the plane and Bouj had a production Kode 80 (the same one i rode while it was over here in WA - super good for reliable projecting airs off the margaret river peak , and hard spraying turns in the top of the wave -i have never ridden a board that throws buckets like this thing!) to lend him for the event.

Kev reckons crew were telling him they hadnt seen him sail that well for years!

as an aside - i recently rode the production Kode 104 - fast! and totally loose for a board this size! And a freestyler too!

Ty Bodycoat has made an awesome comeback to wavesailing - i reckon he could do an occy if he puts his mind to it! He tried my Acid 80 and went straight in and picked up a kode 80.

kev's result feels like a great back up to my original review - here it is:


Just to qualify this review:

i weigh 87 kgs and have tested the Kode 80 at Hookipa (logo high - 4.2 weather), shoulder high cross on sprecks.(5.5 weather)

And SW Dutchies (5.3 weather - 3m swell - mid tide - pretty nice head high onshore bowls to be had. jumps and wave riding tested. All on the stock 23 cm provided fin.

Sailing style - turning a bit more out the front of the wave and trying to get square to the section , to (try to) achieve this i tend to ride with a bit less out haul than most. But downhaul nicely cranked for drag elimination.

First up - i LOVE the Acid 80 from 07 and 08. I could put on my 6.0 or go as small as 4.2 - all on the one board. You can do that with light rigs (Severne Gators on RDM masts)

Ditto for the Evo 80 - which covered pretty much the same range - but delivered a bit more drive and pop looseness in shoulder high and under (great for scarbs! ) - while the Acid delivered a bit more control and bucket throwing ability over that size.(great for our classic reef breaks. )

Regarding jumps- The Acid jumped higher (more top end speed) while the Evo had more mid air control (late unplanned push loops and forced backies) due to its shorter nose - less swing weight.

I love both boards and couldn't split them to call the better all rounder.

When i heard the Acid 80 was to be discontinued i got a bit nervous - this is just such a fine board! Well i neednt have worried..

The Kode 80 definitely has the same feel as the Acid and i would say identical (or close ) tail as the Acid 80 did. Basically a fast pulled in tail with a nice amount of vee (delivers insane carving control at speed ) teamed up with a VERY VERY fast rocker (SUPER early planing - massive jumps). Do not under estimate a fast rocker's ability to deliver good top end control too - because as you travel faster "pull force" seems to disappear from the rig.

Due to its mobility i was out at Hookipa getting plenty of waves amongst all the wavesailing icons of the sport. Its a pretty daunting experience launching off the beach when you have Naish, Goya, Polakow, Baker , Dunkerbeck and lots more- all blasting around.

Once on the water -I felt like i had one of the fastest and most mobile set ups on the water - i was able to sail out the back , get upwind fast and get set waves - seemingly at will. I was not getting stuck in the pack - not having to scratch for waves. To put this in perspective - this is a production board being sailed by an amateur wave sailor
I was quite surprised at this...

Compared to the Acid 80- The Kode has had some foam shaved off it the nose and has become a little shorter in the nose. this means that the massive jumping ability of the Acid has been retained while combining some of the mid air throw around ability that the evos are famous for- there was definitely more ability to correct a slightly wrong BL projection with the new shape - and the fwd rotations were a little faster and snappier.

in the bottom turn - it felt identical to the acid 80- throw down turns at full speed with full confidence - this is what made the Acid such a classic. Being a heavier sailor i need to bag out my outhaul some what to maintain mobility - so this control is critical.

The top turn however has been tweaked - the reduction in nose mass delivers a looser top turn - with tail snap / slide ability seemingly on tap. OR go for full rail to wave face commitment and see how much spray you can throw - with some front and back foot balance both options are there. This delivers a sense of creativity and variance in turns that makes it too much fun.

the vee in the tail means you can roll off the bottom turn rail with confidence and smoothly introduce the top turn rail to the lip. The blade rail in the tail provides beautiful control mid turn while The floaty rail up the front delivers nice projection out of the lip - and away from the death zone.

As for freestyle - unfortunately you'd have to search far and wide to find a less talented freestyler than i - but i can say that on reverse 360 slides backwards down the wave face (its my one and only "trick" - the "stubby!!") the tail stays nice and clear - with no digging in - so i would say a freestyler would be able to whip this thing around pretty well.

Downsides? - the board was probably a touch harder to tack than the Acid 80 - due to the decreased flotation up the front. But no more difficult than an Evo - you just have to be dynamic.

In summary - Its a looser Acid 80!! Starboard took a board that i already rate a big fat 9.5 out of 10 and improved it. I'm tempted to deliver a 10... lets call it a 9.8. Its just so well rounded, fast, loose, balanced in the air , controllable at speed, rangey -For me personally - i just cant fault it.

I just found my 1 board quiver /all rounder for this season!

Of course i would recommend a test drive on one of these to anyone interested in this review - and make your own judgement relative to your style.

Yeah, and angulo won Cabo Verde on a pruduction board also...I'm a bit sceptic about Kev and Angulo's board, however, thank you for the report.
nord_roi

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Reflex Films said...

Kev Pritchard recently placed 3rd in Cabo Verde on one of these - his twinsers didnt show up on the plane and Bouj had a production Kode 80 (the same one i rode while it was over here in WA - super good for reliable projecting airs off the margaret river peak , and hard spraying turns in the top of the wave -i have never ridden a board that throws buckets like this thing!) to lend him for the event.

Kev reckons crew were telling him they hadnt seen him sail that well for years!

as an aside - i recently rode the production Kode 104 - fast! and totally loose for a board this size! And a freestyler too!

Ty Bodycoat has made an awesome comeback to wavesailing - i reckon he could do an occy if he puts his mind to it! He tried my Acid 80 and went straight in and picked up a kode 80.

kev's result feels like a great back up to my original review - here it is:


Just to qualify this review:

i weigh 87 kgs and have tested the Kode 80 at Hookipa (logo high - 4.2 weather), shoulder high cross on sprecks.(5.5 weather)

And SW Dutchies (5.3 weather - 3m swell - mid tide - pretty nice head high onshore bowls to be had. jumps and wave riding tested. All on the stock 23 cm provided fin.

Sailing style - turning a bit more out the front of the wave and trying to get square to the section , to (try to) achieve this i tend to ride with a bit less out haul than most. But downhaul nicely cranked for drag elimination.

First up - i LOVE the Acid 80 from 07 and 08. I could put on my 6.0 or go as small as 4.2 - all on the one board. You can do that with light rigs (Severne Gators on RDM masts)

Ditto for the Evo 80 - which covered pretty much the same range - but delivered a bit more drive and pop looseness in shoulder high and under (great for scarbs! ) - while the Acid delivered a bit more control and bucket throwing ability over that size.(great for our classic reef breaks. )

Regarding jumps- The Acid jumped higher (more top end speed) while the Evo had more mid air control (late unplanned push loops and forced backies) due to its shorter nose - less swing weight.

I love both boards and couldn't split them to call the better all rounder.

When i heard the Acid 80 was to be discontinued i got a bit nervous - this is just such a fine board! Well i neednt have worried..

The Kode 80 definitely has the same feel as the Acid and i would say identical (or close ) tail as the Acid 80 did. Basically a fast pulled in tail with a nice amount of vee (delivers insane carving control at speed ) teamed up with a VERY VERY fast rocker (SUPER early planing - massive jumps). Do not under estimate a fast rocker's ability to deliver good top end control too - because as you travel faster "pull force" seems to disappear from the rig.

Due to its mobility i was out at Hookipa getting plenty of waves amongst all the wavesailing icons of the sport. Its a pretty daunting experience launching off the beach when you have Naish, Goya, Polakow, Baker , Dunkerbeck and lots more- all blasting around.

Once on the water -I felt like i had one of the fastest and most mobile set ups on the water - i was able to sail out the back , get upwind fast and get set waves - seemingly at will. I was not getting stuck in the pack - not having to scratch for waves. To put this in perspective - this is a production board being sailed by an amateur wave sailor
I was quite surprised at this...

Compared to the Acid 80- The Kode has had some foam shaved off it the nose and has become a little shorter in the nose. this means that the massive jumping ability of the Acid has been retained while combining some of the mid air throw around ability that the evos are famous for- there was definitely more ability to correct a slightly wrong BL projection with the new shape - and the fwd rotations were a little faster and snappier.

in the bottom turn - it felt identical to the acid 80- throw down turns at full speed with full confidence - this is what made the Acid such a classic. Being a heavier sailor i need to bag out my outhaul some what to maintain mobility - so this control is critical.

The top turn however has been tweaked - the reduction in nose mass delivers a looser top turn - with tail snap / slide ability seemingly on tap. OR go for full rail to wave face commitment and see how much spray you can throw - with some front and back foot balance both options are there. This delivers a sense of creativity and variance in turns that makes it too much fun.

the vee in the tail means you can roll off the bottom turn rail with confidence and smoothly introduce the top turn rail to the lip. The blade rail in the tail provides beautiful control mid turn while The floaty rail up the front delivers nice projection out of the lip - and away from the death zone.

As for freestyle - unfortunately you'd have to search far and wide to find a less talented freestyler than i - but i can say that on reverse 360 slides backwards down the wave face (its my one and only "trick" - the "stubby!!") the tail stays nice and clear - with no digging in - so i would say a freestyler would be able to whip this thing around pretty well.

Downsides? - the board was probably a touch harder to tack than the Acid 80 - due to the decreased flotation up the front. But no more difficult than an Evo - you just have to be dynamic.

In summary - Its a looser Acid 80!! Starboard took a board that i already rate a big fat 9.5 out of 10 and improved it. I'm tempted to deliver a 10... lets call it a 9.8. Its just so well rounded, fast, loose, balanced in the air , controllable at speed, rangey -For me personally - i just cant fault it.

I just found my 1 board quiver /all rounder for this season!

Of course i would recommend a test drive on one of these to anyone interested in this review - and make your own judgement relative to your style.

production boards are coming out with shapes these days that are as good as custom- and in fact have been (provided you get the right one) for the last 8 years or so - provided the style of the board fits your style of sailing

Production boards are good, don't get me wrong!!

A cutom board design for you weight, your home break and you way of sailing is a notch over a production board....based on a good local shaper of course. Production boards and magazines are telling your story since the last 10 years...a lot of $$$ are involved and now there is no shaper anymore, juste Big Company..who can put a lot of $$ in mags...small shaper couldn't....

Last time I was on Maui, I tried a Quatro Custom made for a guy a bit bigger than me and tested it vs a JP, Starboard, Quatro Prod and a Naish. The board was design to surf, just surf...riding the board on the way out was hard and painfull, but as soon as you were surfing....never been in the right place at the right time like that and cut back was just amazing, my legs was barely holding when I was connecting correctly!! Never felt that before. So...if I was a Pro rider and I had a competition in Cabo Verde...I think I would design a board for that break..but that's my opinion...and we all know that Boujmaa is constantly R&D for starboard...seems funny he stopped that and use production boards....but yes I read that on starboards website and Kevin's. But, yeah you're right, productin board are good.

nord_roi

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Reflex Films said...

production boards are coming out with shapes these days that are as good as custom- and in fact have been (provided you get the right one) for the last 8 years or so - provided the style of the board fits your style of sailing

Would it be accurate to say that production boards cater for the lowest common denominator?

Big board companies (surfboard companies too) aim to sell boards to the widest possible market, while keeping the number of board models to a minimum.

Therefore, you end up with "average" boards that work ok for a lot of people, but are not exceptional for any one person.

If you go for a test ride on a wave board and it rides like a piece of sh|t on the flat water, I bet your "joe average" wave sailor wouldn't like it. The problem is that Joe Average is 90% of your market. So in the end, specific performance is sacrificed for wide user appeal.

...

or maybe I am trying to justify to myself why I spent the $$$ on a custom

I read that about KP and his Kode as well. But I also saw a photo on www.beachtelegraph.com that showed him on a twin fin in one heat. Old photo ? Who knows. All I do know is that we can't go on like this, with suspicious minds.

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NordRoi said...

Production boards are good, don't get me wrong!!

A cutom board design for you weight, your home break and you way of sailing is a notch over a production board....
[quote/]

Provided that your home break has the same conditions day in day out and you don't sail anywhere else. If that's the case then I guess you're sailing on a custom asymetric?... hmmm probably not!
We all sail in different locations in different conditions, or even the same location with different conditions... side-shore/side-on/side-off/small slop/logo high etc etc
I spend a small fortune on my gear to get the best of everything and I'd put my production board up against any custom. Of course if you're going to have a quiver of boards made up for all the different conditions you encounter (like the pro's do) then that's a different kettle of fish.
I haven't heard Josh say he used a production board to win Cabo Verde, but I have seen a picture of him sailing on a board with the Angulo spray and a quattro logo on the tail!
My criticism of the production companies is that they spend far too much time and money on wanky marketing slogans and stories. Maybe if they fired all the marketing executives we could all afford another board!

If you understand french, you can read the interview on windsurfjournal, I don't think they translated the article, sometime they do.

http://www.windsurfjournal.com/frontblocks/news/PaperView.asp?id_papers=3780&gauche=report&ID_BB_LANGUAGES=1

But here the translation:
WJ : What kind of gear you used during the competition ?
JA : During all the competition, I used my 88L Production Chango and Maui Sail Lengend 5.7, except again'st Kevin Pritchard where I used a Legend 5.3.

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I haven't heard Josh say he used a production board to win Cabo Verde, but I have seen a picture of him sailing on a board with the Angulo spray and a quattro logo on the tail!

But a pro sailor could very likely be using production boards, especially if they had alot of input in the design process of the board and is stoked with how they turned out. i.e Kevin on the Kode, Josh on his boards..

Its true, some pros are riding production...

"Production Custom 78"

now i'm just confused

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Reflex Films said...

He tried my Acid 80 and went straight in and picked up a kode 80.

Didn't he break his old starboard at mettams then go and get a kode or was that Luke ? I may have heard wrong.

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Reflex Films said...

production boards are coming out with shapes these days that are as good as custom- and in fact have been (provided you get the right one) for the last 8 years or so - provided the style of the board fits your style of sailing

If productions are as good as customs, why did qattro detune their production board(based on a custom) a few years back after the Brit magazine didn't review it well ?
Why do the majority of pro and sponsored riders still continue to use customs repainted up as a production?

JA using a production Chango...? Well I have used them and must say they are great wave boards. The ones I have tried weren't much fun on the way out... you never felt like your stance was right to really do any good jumps... but then on the way in the boards catch even the smallest ripple way out back and get better and better the bigger the waves got.

On the other hand I have also tried the 84 JP twinny in both standard build and Pro model build and both seem to perform extremely well on both the way out as well as on a wave.

In essence though their are very different boards for very different riding styles. I can see Josh riding waves and almost know it looks like some riding a chango... wide, smooth drawn lines. Then I see Kauli and his lines are very tight and aggressive... very much like what you would see on the pro surfing circuit. That style is pretty much reflected in the JP twin fin production boards.

Production board or custom... man reality is that most of the guys on the PWA tour sailing in Cabo are better than your average sailor and hence would probably do well on any type of board as long as it's suitable to waves.

i really don't see any difference between production and custom.

the old days of shaping a board up from a pre rockered blank are well and truely over.

i think it's more a case of proto versus production.

production boards are cnc shaped from a template
custom boards are wire cut from a template

production board are hand finished
custom boards are hand finished

what's the difference.?

quality control and the ability to get yourself a proto or a unique graphic.

Select to expand quote

Production board or custom... man reality is that most of the guys on the PWA tour sailing in Cabo are better than your average sailor and hence would probably do well on any type of board as long as it's suitable to waves.

so so true

Ohh and green thumb too Stehsegler

but also consider that the level of competition is so high that a board that is a little stiff , or a little too slow - means that they are straight out the back door -

the level of sailing is so high that there are no easy heats in the PWA anymore.

So if you are on a board that is just average - and you cant tweak your reos with some tail slide , or throw some big buckets of spray - chances are you are gone. There are definitely production wave boards out there that just do not turn. And always have been - or that do turn but sail like they have weed on the fin.

i am a big fan of good boards - be they production or custom - just have a look at some of the great work stoney is doing..


Some of the brit mags (who shall go unnamed) have done some atrocious things - like testing wave boards in dead onshore knee high wind generated slop - you cant draw ANY conclusions from that - except maybe which board is the fastest . If i was the shaper i would pull my product too ...

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Reflex Films said...
Some of the brit mags (who shall go unnamed) have done some atrocious things - like testing wave boards in dead onshore knee high wind generated slop - you cant draw ANY conclusions from that - except maybe which board is the fastest . If i was the shaper i would pull my product too ...

I think they do that because in reality 99.9% of people in Europe sail in exactly those conditions. And to be honest unless you call Gnaraloo your local break (which I don't think anyone does) you probably want a board which works in any condition.

I agree with DL and Reflex.

The top windsurfers who represent a brand compete to win and stay on top of the ladder, therefore they use the best shaper. Right now, the Man that delivers that job is Keith Teboul, from Quatro International. Everyone in the windsurfing industry agrees to that. Its not false advertising or marketing if riders use his boards covered with the sponsor's stikers. They compete to win.

I do not think that the style of Kauli is pretty much reflected in the JP production twin fin. (...Then I see Kauli and his lines are very tight and aggressive... very much like what you would see on the pro surfing circuit. That style is pretty much reflected in the JP twin fin production boards.)
JP's concept is great because its suitable for a large number of riders; but it is miles away from being called "radical". Regarding Kauli or Polakow...they have never ridden a production board; they ride custom made boards, that if they were sold on a production base, there would be just a handful of sailors to be able to enjoy them and take the maximum out of them.

Every brand targets a different group of windsurfers. It's good to understand what is going on but I think we should not worry so much about it. They are all good. Let's just get on any board and have some fun instead!

Alberto

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Gestalt said...

i think it's more a case of proto versus production.

production boards are cnc shaped from a template
custom boards are wire cut from a template

production board are hand finished
custom boards are hand finished

what's the difference.?

quality control and the ability to get yourself a proto or a unique graphic.

That's a really uneducated broad sweeping comment, another example of how misforming forums can be

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Gestalt said...

i really don't see any difference between production and custom.

That's obvious by your post !

I get to do a lot of repairs on customs and productions and have done for many years now.
I don't want to mention any brands but heres an example of the difference I noted recently between a custom and a production both with the same brand painted on.
The custom one had a sh1t load more rocker, like 60mm more nose kick and another 60mm more tail kick. 60mm is huge! I know from trial and error that just adjusting a rocker by 10mm can turn an awesome board into a dog.
The bottom tuck was more and travelled further to the tail on the custom.
The rails were thinner on the custom.
The sharp edge on the bottom tuck was only on the last third of the custom but on the production it continued further towards the nose.
The front rails on the custom were very rounded an not on the production.
The custom was heaps lighter.
The footstrap spread on the custom was wider than the production.
The bottom shape concaves on the custom were deeper.

If you know what you are looking at then there is an OBVIOUS difference between custom and production. I would call it the "finer details"

nothing uneducated in my comments. you'll notice i purposefully didn't mention board shape.

i was pointing out that production boards are built the same way as so called custom boards. and that "custom" board builders are capable of producing numerous boards of the same shape. most punters think that a custom board builder changes every board they make. this is just not the case. take CA for example.

at no point did i say that production boards have the same shape as the proto's. i guess you just assumed that's what i meant. unless of course it's the proto that was used to run the production line.

I sailed a quattro custom twin fin at Corros.
It was a complete dog.

Custom boards aren't always necessarily better than production. If anything, production boards get far more testing done on them (by real people) than custom shapes do. Lots of riders, lots of feedback, evolution of shapes over the years... I can't see how people can think that production boards are bad.

That said, I sailed a Wave wand custom at Avalon.
It was awesome.
And I bought another wave wand custom, which gets regular use

i agree nebbian,

custom boards aren't necessarily better than production boards and vice versa.

it all depends on the design. after all the production boards are based on one custom board that's deemed to work.

but the evolution of shape thing gets back to what i was trying to say above.

custom board shapers typically evolve their shapes also. they use templates to cut the foam. it is not a start from scratch process every time. changes in design can be very subtle.

i would bet that nearly all of the mainstream custom board builders in oz use templates for their foam and these templates have been tweaked over years.

take starboard for eg,

once their shaper finds the proto that works it's sent into production.
look at stoneys boards.

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Gestalt said...

most punters think that a custom board builder changes every board they make. this is just not the case. take CA for example.

Be careful with your blanket statements, G.

CA's not a good example as it's a factory, not a custom shaper.

I had a custom board made by Rider5 this season and I can assure you the board was CUSTOM BUILT. Mike spent more than an hour with me discussing the details to understand what sort of board I wanted. Then he adapted his templates to suit. With his expert guidance I got to choose the rocker, the outline, the dimensions, the footstrap spread, the insert spread, the construction, the rails, the core material, the number of fins and of course the graphics. The result was that I got exactly the board that I wanted and it sails amazingly.

When you buy a production board you have to find the board that best suits you out of what is available. When you buy a custom you're getting one that is suited to you.

There are some good production boards, but with talented shapers making custom boards for less $, the decision's a no-brainer.

Select to expand quote

nebbian said...

I sailed a quattro custom twin fin at Corros.
It was a complete dog.

Custom boards aren't always necessarily better than production. If anything, production boards get far more testing done on them (by real people) than custom shapes do. Lots of riders, lots of feedback, evolution of shapes over the years... I can't see how people can think that production boards are bad.

That said, I sailed a Wave wand custom at Avalon.
It was awesome.
And I bought another wave wand custom, which gets regular use

Sounds like that custom wasn't made for you. It probably had a lot more rocker than you're used to etc.

The original owner probably shredded on it.

fair enough leech, but CA lean more towards custom allowing a pretty large choice of graphics.

same with some of the other "production" manufacturers. they allow some custom features.

this is exactly why above i said we should use the word proto for boards like the one rider5 made you.

because that's what it is. it's a prototype. if rider5 starts making several version of it then it becomes a production board.

i'm not bagging custom or production. i think i made it fairly clear that a good board is a good board.

i also don't think it's fair to say that "production boards" are detuned. they are just tweaked to suit different conditions and uses.

for everyone to be saying that custom boards are better or worse than production boards is crap. what they should say is they don't like the design of board X. as
i said above, both production and custom boards are designed the same, shaped the same and built with the same methods. the days of a plastic roto mould copies are long gone. unfortunately it is still commonly thought that production boards are some how built or designed differently to custom.

as i said above the only difference is quality control, the ability to get yourself a proto design or the ability to use a unique graphic.

for the record, the majority of the boards i have owned over the 20 years have all been custom/proto boards.

now back on topic.

the kode,

why is it not possible for a pro to achieve 3rd place on a production board?

can all of the experts prove to me why?

if it has the same shape as the proto it was modelled from, and the construction is the same then how is it different?

not even a red thumb.

girls!

So by your definitions, G, what's a custom board?

glad to see i got my red thumb.



i figure a custom board could be either a prototype or a production board with custom features like graphics,

i'd call a one off board a proto.

PROTO -adjective
Indicating the first or earliest or original.

PROTOTYPE -noun
.The original or model on which something is based or formed.
.An original type, form, or instance serving as a basis or standard for later stages.
.An original or model after which anything is copied

CUSTOM -adjective
.Made to order.
.Specializing in the making or selling of made-to-order goods
.Made according to the specifications of an individual

Leech you got a hand made custom prototype that cannot be reproduced, ever again, by hand. A similar one could be made but never an identicle one.
I do see the G mans point that repeat replicated handmade boards are a crude form of small scale production. ZZzzz