Monday, June 16, 2008

King's Diablo: Check this one out!



Check out Steve King's new carbon fiber, Alexander designed Gemini- I call it the Diablo. Steve had this one made at 10' by 30" which is a step down from the 11.5' Gemini he started on and a world apart performance-wise.

I got a shot at paddling it today in meaty, head high shorebreak. The board moves really well through the water; it's stable and doesn't yaw at all even with it's small quad fin setup.

This board is made of 1lb foam, it's really light and yet it punches through whitewash easily. I was really surprised by this because I'd always thought that heavier boards were easier to paddle out through broken waves.

Another surprise came in surfing the board. The thing is fast! Whip it around, point it down the line and it goes! Additionally, with the small fins that Steve was running, I thought it'd blow out off the bottom but the board held really well.

The board turns much differently than my 2+1 set up, more of a mid-face pivot than the swoop that I'm used to on my board. On the one open faced wave that I snagged, I found that the Diablo liked to be driven rail-to-rail.

Steve's previous Gemini was more of a point and shoot board- the Diablo wants to be pumped for speed. Steve agrees that this board is dying for a lined up point break set-up to really get jamming. It'd be fun to get this board on a race track wave and find it's top end.

3 comments:

K3rM1t said...

Good God!
That's not something I want to see out in the lineup! Looks like a Jimmy Lewis Picklefork on steroids!

Can you imagine a lineup full of halfass SUP surfers loosing these double pronged missiles of death in the soup?

Nice colors though...

Anonymous said...

the gem is not available to the general public so there should be no concern "with half ass sup surfers".every surfboard has dangers that come with it fins that cut pointy nose that can poke you.but what most of all is the surfer on the board.oh k3rm1t alexander makes a killer gem towboard check out his web site theres a girl on a 30'wave on "pickle fork" shes not scared of the double pronged missile.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone have information on or know who carries a double paddle SUP paddle, perhaps 10-11' long for use in SUP paddling? Have searched the web and only found one manufacturer who only makes aluminun shafts. Don