We took a holiday just after Christmas 2003 and went to the Gower in Wales for a week.
We didn’t have too much wind, but managed a couple of days windsurfing. One of the places we tried was Rossilli, a west facing beach that feels the full force of swell from the Irish sea. Jeremy, Windy John and I all sailed 5.3’s (Jeremy had to move down to 4.7 after trashing a panel in his 5.4), and had an interesting sail.
To be frank, I didn’t have the best time as I struggled to get out past the impact zone. Windy John, on the other hand, had a great time. I put this down to three reasons –
The Evo is a wide board at 56cm, and seemed to plane early even when loaded up with Windy’s lardy weight. It has a distinct plan shape, with a relatively high degree of parallelism in the rails.
I started to recognise that the Evo is probably more suitable than my waveboard for the type of sailing that I do in UK waters. Ordinarily I am not sailing in full-on waves (which is a good thing, I was knackered after Rossilli), but do often sail in high wind bump & jump conditions. This started me thinking that I could build a high wind (f5/6+) board that has a similar volume to my wave board, but is wider and with less nose and tail rocker than my wave board. In concept, I guess this is close to the thinking behind the Mistral Score and JP Freewave boards.
About a year back I built a board that is 250 in length, 60 cms wide and probably about 87-90 ltrs. I really like the board, it will take a 6.7m sail (my largest) with ease, it planes really early, and is finished in wood and exposed carbon rails. The rocker line of this board seems like a good place to start for the new board, as it works well. The plan shape of the board needs to be scaled down to a new width, and the depth of the board also requires modification. The most difficult thing is deciding the new width. The average 74ltr wave board has a width of 53.5cm. I’ve decided to go for 54.5, not as wide as the Evo, but then I’m only 68kgs.
25/1/04
Work is kicking off at the moment that means that I can’t spend any time in the workshop during the week. Can still grab an hour or two at the weekend though. Today I make the ‘V’ cut in the hull of the board, by dropping each template by 8.5mm. Not as much ‘V’ as you see in a lot of waveboards, but then I’m building a high wind B&J board. After making the ‘V’ cut I mark the plan shape of the board on the hull and remove excess foam. The board at this point weighs 1kg, which equates to 91 ltrs – at least 15 ltrs of foam will come off in the shaping process, so this is a good indication that I’m looking at a 75ish ltr board which is what I want. The next stage in the process is to laminate Airex R63.80 onto the hull. I’ve only been using 2mm sheets recently for the speedboard and have run out of 3mm foam. I need to order some which will take at least a week, so its tools down for a while. I’m going to order the inserts, cloth and resin now as well, as a lot of this comes from the US and the dollar is strong!
18/1/04
Hot wire cutting day. Rex comes down for an hour or so and helps out with the hot wire cut. The process goes fine, and we make two perfect cuts along the hull and deck of the board. The only fly in the ointment is that last year I took a section off the EPS block for a mast box repair – one of the cuts for this block has strayed into the tail of the new board! It is a small problem that is easily rectified through the rest of the process.
14/1/04
The first step is to sort out the rocker templates. These are a modification of the templates that I’ve used for a previous board, all I have to do is shave 10% off the depth of the templates, which doesn’t take more than an hour or so. I’ve already got a square block of EPS foam, and screw the templates onto the sides in preparation for the hot wire cutting. At this point, I’m still questioning whether 54.5cm width is enough, and maybe I should go wider. The decrease in nose and tail rocker from my wave board lengthens the planning area under the footstraps, and this is just enough to convince me that 54.5 is sufficient, especially if the largest sail I’ll use with this board is a 5.3m. Anything more than 54.5 seems to be a bit too close to the 60cm board I already have. Decision made, I scale down the plan shape of my 60-wide board and cut a new plan shape template.