Palm Beach
6 Mar 09
Conditions: Light off-shore wind. Waist high, closing out waves.
Just the other day I was surfing at Sydney's Palm Beach when I ran into visiting Hawaiian, Todd Bradley. After shaking hands and a short chat he suggested I take out one of the new C4 9'3" Sub Vectors that he had brought over. I've been very inquisitive about this board so I jumped at the chance.
One word: Stability.
The board is: 9'3" x 28.81" x 4.25".
I took my first look at this board and thought, wow - what a sweet looking ride. The metallic silver artwork looks a treat. It's great that it comes in a number of different designs too - adds a little bit of variety or uniqueness to a non-custom board.
The plan shape looks great. You can tell it's going to be stable just by looking at it. The semi full nose and wide tail adds lots of extra foam. I'd be interested to know the volume but couldn't find that information anywhere.
At 4.25" thick, it's not any thicker than its competitors on the market but the thickest point is very close to the rails, before the concave deck starts. This makes it look thicker than it is. It'll also be one of the factors adding to Sub Vector's stability.
I pick the board up and two things hit me straight away - it feels pretty heavy and the handle hole in the deck seems too shallow. Both fine if you are only carrying it for a short time but over any extended distance, they could be a problem.
I throw it in the water, push it out over the shallow sandbank and then jump on. Crikey, it's like standing on the footpath - very stable with minimal wobble, the rumours are right. A few stokes of the paddle and I'm travelling along quite nicely. It's got great glide for a little board and tracks well too - even with the quad set up which was running on this board.
Punching out through the waves was fine. I noticed a little bit of kickback when the white water hit me (probably due to the slightly fuller nose and fairly low nose rocker). This was made up for in the stability of the board in that area of bouncy white water just behind the broken wave (you know that tricky bit?). I think I only fell once while paddling out and there were some fairly difficult waves to punch through on this day.
Out the back, waiting, still feeling super stable, I notice how comfortable and grippy the C4 deck grip is. The big ribs allow you to really lock your toes onto the board and the concave deck creates an obvious sweet spot while paddling or waiting.
I swing around for my first wave (the Sub Vector turns easily) and I drop down into a fast right hander (my forehand). A fairly soft bottom turn to get me lined up and heading along the wall. The 9'3" picks up speed well and starts planing quickly. I'm soon confronted with a crumbling lip and closeout section with which I would normally try and whack or float over - the C4, however, didn't seem nimble enough to get up there quickly so I just went for a layback snap as close to the lip as I could manage. It felt good but not quite as radical as good, semi vertical re-entry.
My other waves were OK under the conditions. I could pump the 9'3" Sub Vector down the line and pick up good speed both forehand and backhand. It also does decent carves when you have a bit of wall to work with - something I thought it might struggle with due to the volume in the rails. If you are light on in the weight department - I'd say you may have some problems sinking the rail enough, though.
The one place where the performance lacked a bit for me was in the ability to throw it around. Very quick changes of direction or hops up onto the foam were tricky. I'm thinking this might be due to the board's weight. Sure, this makes it nice and strong but detracts from the performance somewhat. If you were a bigger and more powerful surfer this may not be an issue at all.
While on a wave the stability, again, is just great. I nearly came unstuck on a backhand closeout re-entry but just got down low and centred over that stable platform and ended up riding away clean. I thought for sure I was going to end up eating it.
Overall, a great performance board for a bigger rider which is quite hard to fall off.
Highs:
- Great stability for a short board.
- High quality, super strong construction.
- Paddles great.
- Very comfortable under your feet.
- Versatile fin options.
- Awesome graphics and design.
Lows:
- Seems pretty heavy.
- Thick rails would be hard to bury for light-weight surfers.
- Carry handle is a little too shallow.
- Hard to come by in Australia.
See some video of this session here: www.CyberSUP.com/videos.asp?code=45
Here's a full bio on me and my details: www.CyberSUP.com/about.asp
