performance report for fatty boom bah!
it worked fine , but..........
after 3 hrs on the water I found it was dragging the stern and was very slow to acelerate.
I blamed it on the wind dropping, but when I wam the board back across the dam and tried to carry it to the trailer I could barely pick it up the stern was sooooo.... heavy. when i stood the board on end water started squirting out of about 6 pinholes in the bottom
I should have put that extra coat of resin on after all.
all up the board had put on ahout 10kg.
then I noticed that one of the foot straps was hanging by 1 screw. it was the 1 strap that wouldnt unscrew when I was working on the board.
the tekscrew that was in the hole( previous owner effort) had pulled out leaving a cavity I could stick a finger into
so a few repairs and its back to the water
performance wise the board was great and the early part of the day was spent with a 2.5m trainer then later a 4.5m sail. the board worked just like the one in safety bay.
If I was building another ( the next will be back to wheels) I wouldnt bother with a swinging centre board. I ender up using a simple straight blade that fixed in from below. so you could make a much simpler CB box or just a fin box from another board , as somebody else suggested
.
They are best for winds under 20 knots and sails in the double digits. Since I didn't have anything else to use, I took that trial by fire. Now, I have a Fanatic Shark 145 for my 8.0 and 9.0. The freeride boards are best up to 9.6 unless the water remains ultra flat. Futhermore, they can go upwind better than any board and the extra middle straps makes downwind blasting rather easy, even in choppy water. The only trouble I have had would be having the strength to hoist those huge pig sails. You just can't take two weeks off the water and then jump on a formula board with a 12 meter sail!!!! Now that I'm 60 years old, my rotator cuff has not been what it used to be.
