Thursday, June 9, 2011

Hobie 8'6 x 29" carbon fiber rails... little rip stick!

Had a super fun time surfing up north the last couple of days (I'm a teacher- and school's out!). I was stoked to hook up with Laguna stando surfer Will who was cool enough to let me get a couple of waves on the little Hobie stand up he was riding. In short, that's a great board! Check out the photos that Will sent me:

I really liked this board. Even though the conditions were pretty junky, this thing made good speed, was solid through a couple of cutbacks and snaps and was a completely do-able small stando for a 210 lber. Will told me he get's a little twangy, liveliness from the parabolic carbon fiber rails (there's no stringer)- I only got a couple of decent waves on it so I'd need to grab one of these for  some extended testing to verify that aspect of the board.
You can see from this shot how pinched the rails are- definitely not big bulbous rails. The board was tippier than the 8'6 I'm on now but not ridiculously so- the thing had a very surfy feeling to it.

The tail is pulled in quite a bit on this one and there's a slight swallow tail  back there. These design aspects produced a solid bite of the bottom- the little bumps in the outline loosened it up nicely.
Of course you gotta go with the Futures! Will chose the Jamie Mitchell Futures fin set and I think it's a good match for the board. As always, you're going to want to move that back fin around until you find the sweet spot. I liked the Jamie set in there because that larger back fin really helped produce some nice drive in a board that's relatively tight out the back end.

It was super fun to surf with Will and all the folks up north- I'm definitely planning on heading back up that way in the next couple of weeks. But right now, all I can dream about is mainland Mexico... stay tuned!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

sorry i missed you John-Will is a great dude-let me know when you come back up and i can let you try my carbon rail no stinger Nectar 9-0!
Maybe we can switch-never tried a Stamps board!
Jon Kinley

Frank Fumich said...

Can you let me know where you bought ur Torque? I've been calling around and shops only seem to have the 28.5 width instead of 29.5...strange since on the website they only show it in 29.5 (orange stripe) thanks for any info
Frank

Frank Fumich said...

Can you tell me where you got it...I'm been calling all around and shops seem to only have 28.5 width, instead of the 29.5. any info would be appreciated!