Check out Stu Kenson's latest ride. I can only imagine how totally satisfying it must be to grow an idea in your mind, shape it with your own two hands and then paddle it out. Stu's stoked on this new one, he should be- this is a nice paddling and hot surfing stand up board.Hot enough as a matter of fact to get me back into my wet, sandy, thrown into the back of my pickup, wetsuit after I had just crawled out of it. You should know that I own four different fullsuits that I keep in rotation just so that I never have to crawl into a cold, clammy one. That board called to me though, and I had to answer- so I sucked it up and wiggled my way back into that dank suit.
Stu and I ended up paddling down the beach for a little surf. In this new board, Stu's redistributed the foam, rethought the rails and rocker and added a couple of bumps down the rail to loosen it all up. The final product is a board that's really stable yet infinitely surfable.
This board was a 10'4, I'd like to see it in a 10' version and I'd like to see it in some open face surf. I snagged three waves on our little coastal cruise (I'd already been in the water three hours so I only had a little time) but each one of them told me a little more about the board. The board in a quad version surfs fast- I call it built in speed. It's got squirt. Unfortunately, the tide was sucking out and the waves were mostly closeouts so I wasn't able to wrap any cutties or throw it up into the lip- but I was dying to!
When I get a chance you'll hear about it.
5 comments:
How does the quad fin setup feel?
downwinder? huh? whats that all about?
NATE I FEEL QUAD IS THE ONLY WAY TO GO.BEEN ON 4 FINS FOR 8 YEARS.MY 11'6"SUP IS A Q VERY FAST AND DRAWS A BETTER LINE.JUST MY THOUGHT OTHERS MIGHT SHARETHE SAME.JOHN BLANK IS ORDER CUT BY NEXT WEEK.GOOD TIME TO GET NEW RIG.SURF INDUST.IS SLOW AT THIS TIME OF YEAR.CAPTNEG9
Hey Cptn. Neg9:
Your typing's getting better, is there something wrong? Always dig the all caps feels like you're yelling at me.
Can't wait to see the new one- you're going to have to take me to where you're getting all this stuff done sometime- it sounds kind of interesting...
Looks like we'll be waiting for some clean water again. Bummer.
John
Hey Nate-
Honestly, I don't think I've given a quad a fair test in some really good, open face surf.
My friend Kiwi has ridden his in some head high to a couple of feet overhead surf and it seems to go pretty darn fast. In fact, that's the impression I get about quads- they really have that speedy feeling to them.
My buddy Capt. Neg9 digs his and he goes really good on his big old white board- once again, built in speed.
We've got quads popping up all over the place over here so I should be able to get you some better data once I can fairly evaluate them.
Other then that I'm digging my 2+1 setup right now- I've found a weird combo of fins that works. More on that later....
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