I took my ancient Bombora X-it, North Prisma 6.5, and Finworks 355 for a blat in the very marginal wind northerly off Green Point in Port Phillip yesterday. I never did timed runs on it back in the 90s, but had a GPS on yesterday and was surprised to see I'd been clocking 27 knots beam reaching. Wind would've barely hit 20kts in the gusts I reckon.

It felt comfy and balanced, another 5+ knots and bearing off may even have squeaked it over 30. I'm pretty amazed that an old plastic board and sail of that era is capable of that in (fairly flat) open water.

I bought the board and Prismas new in the mid 90s, but they've sat in the shed for the past 20+ years while I've been on wave gear. I took the Xit out a month or so back - I needed something I could uphaul due to injury - and it was surprisingly fun and quick feeling to sail on smaller wave sails so I'd been wanting to get a run on it with one of the old Prismas. Had the wrong mast, but worked well enough.

Not quick by modern standards or anything, but thought I'd share a nostalgic bit of fun anyway. I'm tempted to sail it again sometime in the next 20yrs!

same era, the Sputnik 270 was certainly quicker than the (282cm of indestructible rotomolded plastic) X-it. Gybing was an acquired art on those boards! When I say "flat" there was chop up to maybe 0.6m, but the angle on the way in meant I could pick the troughs and sail downhill a bit on one reach. The other way was low to mid 20s.

Watching the Xit flex through the chop, and having seen ppl on surf mats getting more speed than hard boards on a wave, got me wondering if anyone has ever made a hardtop/inflatable bottom board? Probably a dumb idea given the difference in speeds, but the theory is that the mat conforms to the water, rather than displaces it.