Have you noticed how people get a new board & say of their trial run "it was a strong cross wind & choppy & quite messy but I went out anyway!"
Well same with me....couldn't wait for better conditions. The person who borrowed & snapped my whopper (what a lovely gentleman he is!) replaced my whopper with a starboard hero (thanks kev!)
It was like entering a different galaxy once I discovered it was ok to almost stand on the nose when paddling for a wave. A very loose manouvreable speedy little machine (but sorry Hilly not a very pointy nose). And stable in considerable chop

Hey just got my new Starboard Hero as well, and have also been using a whopper for the last couple of months before that. I found it a huge step down in stability and feel like a bit of a kook again (i'm 6ft 3 and 95kg) but it really does fly down the line compared to the whopper. Definitely has a real short board feel to it. I also found the best paddling position to be quite far forward which feels strange at first. Also taking off in a similar position to the mal riders instead of way out the back of the pack. Spin around and take off late! And yes I'm hanging out for better conditions to really try it out. Had pretty average waist to shoulder high stuff for the last 3 days.

GizzieNZ said...

Have you noticed how people get a new board & say of their trial run "it was a strong cross wind & choppy & quite messy but I went out anyway!"

Yep. Although with my last purchase I was lucky, went out on a glassy smallish day with no witnesses or go pros that would post to seabreeze. I went out when the others were going around in circles in Elwood. I went down from down from 10'6" to a 9'4" and had a good time - sure I struggled a bit at first - but oh the serenity.

Yeah I'm sure the Hero is way more stable than many boards out there but at My height and weight I reckon I must be near the limit unless you are very good. My feet are awash with water all the time which makes it tippy. I started on a Walden 10' 10" for about a year, then on to a borrowed whopper which was an easy transition and then the Hero. The Hero paddles as well as the whopper though.

GizzieNZ said...

Well you are much more sophisticated than me then Oliver....my worst moment today apart from paddling over teethy looking rocks to get out was to discover that the cord already attached to the legrope anchor point may have just been a frail bit of twine attached to the starboad sticker....it snapped leaving me swimming frantically paddle in hand to get my board before it ended up on the rocks....major trauma

Hey Gizzie, I had a similar experience with my new Starboard Element a week back & that legrope attach cord snapping & more board going into shore, followed by a long swim in. Fortunately it washed up on sand with only a small compression ding on the bottom. After I got home I checked the edges where the cord attaches & found the edges & finish very rough as well as the metal rod very rough. I'm sure this lead to the cord snapping. I've now sanded back all rough edges & the metal tube and all is good. (Love the Element, great 1st board, a little tippy to learn in choppy surf but still turns & surfs great)

Has anyone else with a new Starboard found this sort of poor finish around the legrope attach point?

If you have a new Starboard I'd recommend you check the finish where the legrope string attaches, a quick check my prevent a snapped cord & swim in?

I haven't contacted starboard yet but will provide feedback thru the shop I bought it from & see what they say. I'm hoping it's an isolated problem.

Gizzie, how did your friend snap your Whopper?

Hey Worlsup,
Yeah the rope on my leggie broke the other day, didn't think too much about it. Thanks for the heads up, I'm off to check it out.

I'm with you guys, LOVE the Hero.
Would like to write more about it but Hilly gets p1ssed off.

HAAK

The cord that comes with the boards in my opinion arent strong enough. Its the first thing I changed before I took it in the surf. The best rope to use is some downhaul or outhaul rope from a windsurfer. I think its called Speedline? Its white. And I do two loops around the attachment. Hope this helps

LouD said...

Gizzie, how did your friend snap your Whopper?

He being quite solid & probably a powerful paddler was probably paddling forcefully out through the surf. The whopper is a very stable paddling platform & it would seem that at some point with the waves knocking up the front of the board while he was paddling out the front of the board just folded up.
Personally after one time nearly getting the whopper slapped into the front of my face I tended to abandon ship once the white water got to a certain size