Did a down-winder today on my new Starboard Pin, wind was 20 to 30 knots and perfect direction, so we could paddle evenly on both side (down-wind heaven!). Swell wasn't huge, I guess the biggest faces were about a metre.

Partners in crime were DJ on the 14' Glide, Pete on a 14' Glide and Al on a 12' Glide.

Initial impression was very stable and pretty immune to side slop because of the displacement nose, easy and fast. Took me till about the half way point - 45 minutes to really start to "get" the board, initially the transition from displacement to planing seemed pretty sudden and at first unpredictable, the tail is narrow so when I stepped back when the board started planing it felt quite sensitive to trim. At this point the 14' Glides were ahead but only 50 or 100 metres but they did seem consistently faster or at least catching more waves than I was.

Then it just kind of clicked, the board seems to have two quite distinct sections to the rocker, you can actually see this when you look at the rocker of the board. There is a point, pretty much under your feet where a reasonably sudden change from nose rocker to tail rocker occurs.

The trick for me seemed to be to stand quite far forward - about normal flat water paddling position to catch the wave then as soon as the board is just on the plane get back to put it onto the rear flat section and ride it as normal, it was even possible if it started to fall off the plane, to move forward get planing again then move back again. Once I started doing this it was really easy to catch waves and even if I stayed forward just a little too long so that the nose dug in all that happened was that the board slowed a little but I could simply move my weight back subtly and then get it onto the plane.

Once I had the transition thing pegged, it felt nice and stable planing - I think the initial trim problems I had just came from me not understanding when it was about to plane so I was stumbling back and forward.

On the bigger waves that were steep I found I was getting right back to try to make sure the nose cleared the next wave, because there isn't much tail kick at all the nose comes up but not as much as it would on my regular 12'6 Starboard. A little disconcerting at high speed right at the back of the board stuffing the nose into the next wave but actually the board rode it out fine and didn't slow as much as I thought it would.

So once I started to "get it" it became much more fun and much closer to the 14' Glides in speed - the Glide guys were probably falling more so I could pretty much keep up because of the the time they lost. Quite a dynamic ride, you certainly just can't stand in one spot if you want to get the most out of it, but more fun in my mind because of that. I swapped with DJ close to the end and The Pin is certainly a very different board to the 14' Glide, today was really ideal for the big Glides and they just take off on the slightest swell in that high wind - with that looong skinny nose the Glides feel like a rocket ship.

So I think the performance of The Pin was very impressive in this high wind - downwind environment considering this isn't really what it's designed for ( I don't think it is anyway!), it was fast and great fun. It will be interesting to try it in open ocean swell, while it does have a very fine tail so isn't really in the mould of the dedicated open water down-wind boards with the fat tail to get picked up by the wave, the displacement hull seems to almost suck down onto the wave and pull the board forward so I think it could still work.

In the less than 20 knot down-wind wind range I imagine it will be really fast with the displacement hull helping to maintain fast average speed but the planing section just waiting for any little wave.

So first day on it great result, looking forward to trying it in flat water and lighter wind to see how it goes. I put a 9" swept back surfing fin instead of the very small straight fin that comes with the board - figured I needed a little help on day one! Sorry about lack of photos but DJ took some and I'm sure he will post them.

eric344 said...

Very nice and interesting review... I'm looking forward for DJ's pics !

Will do soon.. My main big laptop that I used died and is being looked at.. I'm not sure if it's fixable.. I'm using my daughters little laptop with a tiny 8" screen.

I've loaded my pictures but don't have the right click/ pictures re size option of small/med/large on it like my old laptop.

I've tried updates but still no luck.. Does anyong know how you bring up this funtion on windows xp?

DJ

Cool pic's and review guys