revision

the MOTE will not max out at 5. It will handle solid six as long as I can get into the wave. It soaks up the grunt really well.

no advance

no developments on the wooden board front, but I got rid of a 7'0 maurice cole and picked up a 7'0 jim banks. the banks is great. i have also aquired a 6'4 morning of the earth, channel bottom widowmaker. it is a beautiful and very refined piece of equipment. it can be ridden in marginal surf but comes into its own at 3 foot. and the punchier the better. once you get it back onto the channels it howls. i reckon it will max out at about five foot as a 3 fin but as a single it it will handle solid six. might post a photo one day.

I need to get a wooden board specialist to fix the wooden board for me. I must be able to surf it. there was too much sweat involved for it to be an ornament.

waterlogged

what to do? I dried the board out after its last surf. I put it away and then in a fit of madness during the sydney summer flatspell i decided to try and fix the holes. I got some advice from someone on the internet and found that the vent appeared to be sucking water. I thought "a-ha !!" exclamation marks and all. I got a new rubber o-ring for the vent and am certain it does not now take water. I went for a surf. Over the course of a one hour surf it took on between 0.5 and 1.0 litre of sea water. I then decided to drill a hole in the deck to help it drain and have left it to dry for about a month now. a little bit surprisingly, the sydney summer flatspell is still in full swing, with no real end in sight. BTW i'm predicting a great period of swell from late February to early March. Some big east coast lows/ cyclones of the in the south western pacific. Anyway, I got a comment from Brett in NZ who had problems but has solved them. I sought his advice and he reckons trying something i have been thinking about; connecting a hose to the vent and blowing air into the board while holding the board underwater to see where the bubbles come out. sounds good. any other comments welcome. I would also like to know why a board that weighs 6 kgs surfs better with litre of seawater inside?

backtrackin

i thought i would add a photo of the surf referred to in my last post. before it gets lost forever. it was as clean and as fun as it looks

thanks butts for the photo.

the clock has sprouted wings

the clock has sprouted wings !! ha ha, very funny. more than two months since i've posted. I haven't gone back to fixing the wooden board. I have been riding my standard short boards, with one less than successful one surf one my PU fish, and one very successful surf on my pintail 7'6.

When summer is back upon us i'll be more inclined to re-finish the wooden board. I have decided to sand it right back, re-do the rails through the top third, add an edge to the back third and then get it glassed. It'll weigh a ton but it will turn, it will be stiffer, and it won't leak! that's the plan.

The surf on the 7'6 pintail was probably the day of the year for me, so far. Got the local beach with only two other guys out, for about an hour, offshore, 5 foot, 10sec, fun. got lots of waves, messed up a few, but got a smoking barrel, deep, but didn't make it out. still, much joy.

anyway, i was cleaning out the shed on the weekend and decided to get the boards together for a family photo. I am riding the round tails mainly atm.

more trouble

took the board out for another test run today. at freshie. some nice head high lefts on the sets. a bit fat. man this board does not handle the lefts. it jsut kept bogging on the face even without trying to turn. the rights were better, but not much. and to top it off. more water inside. not as mucht his time, but still...

I think I need to do three things with this board. in chronological order. 1. dry it out, find and repair holes. 2. take a sander to the rails on front third of the board and round them out to make them a bit more forgiving, then re-epoxy. 3. practice riding it a lot more in smaller stuff, (1-2ft) and get used to the flex.

A bit of a bummer but it is mainly my own fault for being an ordinary tradesmen and being lazy shaping the rails.

Can't be too sad though, good waves this morning and more of the same tomorrow.

not today either

Swell has been hanging around. 8ft sets on open beaches. I very narrowly avoided a two wave set of 3 x o/head on the head on Sunday. scrambled like mad, thinking to myself i don't really feel like this thrashing after having had a long surf yesterday, the muscles felt tired. my mate who was in the same predicament about twenty metres south, said to me a little later that as soon as he realised he was going to make it he statred to think about turning around to padle in. yeah right. Although it is big, it is messy. 20 knot southerlies making it unsurfable except in the few protected spots. tomorrow the southerly will be still howling. bower? may as well. sans fish.