We're off to explore the fiji islands by windsurfer!
Yep, this Friday 12th March Adrian Rowe and I fly into Nadi Fiji and will set sail from the mainland on Sunday to island hop our way through the islands for 2 weeks.
In addition to Adrians many talents he is a trained Naval Architect so he helped to design the ultimate board for windsurf touring.
Stuart from Dweller Designs custom made the board for us last year and we've been testing it all summer.
With the assistance of Caramel Creative we even started a new brand called
Scarper Windsurfing which will develop and produce boards and equipment for other like minded windsurfers around the world.
The Tour is 373 litres, 4.2m long and has 4 storage compartments providing a total of approx 56 litres of storage volume within the board. We used a Std Neill Pryde RSX daggerboard and mast track and i'll be using a Severne 8.5m Overdrive.
The board handles well even when loaded up with 20 -30 kg of gear and although it's not lightening fast planing is no problem down to approx 12 knots due to it's hard rails and volume in the wide tail. It handles up to 30 knots quite comfortably (with an 8.5m) and points upwind exceptionally well.
Adrian loves travelling light so he'll be sailing a Starboard Phantom 380 with a 8.2m Naish Redline with all his gear strapped to the deck in dry bags.
After this trip we plan on building our next prototype board for touring which will be a little smaller and lighter than the Tour.
Special thanks to everyone at RPS Boardstore in Elwood Vic for all their help and support thus far, along with Overboard for their waterproof bags and Mont Equipment for their great light weight camping equipment.
Will have more pics to add soon!
For more info email Adrian Rowe <adrianrowe75@hotmail.com>
Matt & Adrian
