JP Slalom IX 68

G'day everyone.It's time to waffle on a bit about my JP Slalom IX. Mine is the 68 cm wide version which puts it in the medium wind section. I have found about 7 metres to be an ideal sail size for this board which for my locality makes it a perfect north easterly seabreeze slalom board. A 7.5 to 8.5 would also go very well on this board, or both if you want to. Personally I'll be going halfway between the two for a 7.9 metre. Put a 6.5 on it in some stronger breeze if you like getting really bouncy. I wouldn't go any smaller than that lol. The board also seems very sensitive to fin selection. 3 fins is nice to have for this board, 4 would be perfect.

Handling.
This is an all out slalom board so expect it to be lively. It is lively, but by no means difficult to control. Sure this board bounces over chop, it's a slalom board after all. The JP IX however has this uncanny knack of only bouncing to a certain point and then sucking back down again. It sort of skips around and yet hugs the water at the same time. My old seatrend would lift off like a jumbo jet if I let it, not so the JP IX. It bounces around but in a manner of controlled agression that I find makes it very enjoyable to sail. It has the liveliness and excitment without the fear factor. I think it works awesomely in this regard. I have had zero catapult issues with this board.

Gybing.
I love gybing this board, it's my favourite thing about it. I look forward to gybes on this board as an exciting part of riding it rather than something to put up with so I can go in the other direction. When you throw this board into a laydown gybe you are rewarded with a very gratifying feeling of bite from the rail, it's a reassuring and solid feeling that makes you want to push harder next time. There is a catch however, if you want to gybe this board you need to be forceful and decisive. He who hesitates gets a wet arse. Trying to nurse this board around in a long smooth carve will result in a bouncy and probably unsucessful gybe. Sheeting in hard and putting forceful pressure on the rail will work better on this beast. And if you want to slam it into a full speed laydown gybe, oh baby you are going to have a grin on your face.

The race deck.
JP Australia states that their new outline and race deck promotes a comfortable stance with even pressure on both feet on all angles. I have to agree for the most part. In my old days of sailing I would go into a different stance for broad reaching. I have had to relearn and retrain myself to just hold a comfortable stance and keep the pressure on my feet even. Basically, sail it the way JP designed it to, it seems to work better.

Some slight niggles.
I'm not that keen on the JP footstraps. They are designed not to twist and in this regard they work 100% effectively. My problem is, I find them to bloody stiff. If I adjust them to be firm and grippy while sailing I find it extremely
difficult to get my foot in. I've had to loosen them a bit which has resulted in a poor fit and as a result I'm not quite driving the board as hard as I could be at the moment. I must confess however that I'm a bit of a spazz at hooking in and getting in the straps. A better sailor would probably not have a problem.

Conclusion.
I'm not really qualified to review a pure slalom board actually as I'm not really fit or strong enough to take this thing out and rev the **** out of it. I can however offer a freeracers perspective, this board is perfectly accessible to this group. I'm an old bugger who can sometimes crank a nice gybe and I've been having a blast on it. If you like a challenge you will like this board. It can challenge you without making life miserable. Freeriders would probably enjoy a go of one of these but would be glad to get thier own board back.







Apologies in advance for the crappy sail used in the video. My reflex 4 7.0 metre had an accident and was unavailable. I also left the mast for the sail I used at home so it was setting kind of flat and floppy. The vid is a gusty northerly at Jimmy's beach. Not idea conditions but I still had a good time. Also apologies in advance for the sore neck some of the camera angles will give you. Enjoy :-)

Thanks Cluffy, also enjoy your reviews.

I'm buying the 66cm model. Cant wait to l pick it up on laybuy from s shop in sydney. They say these bosrds are very fast on all reaches .read want you had to say which ticked all the boxes. Probably have to get a decent fin to liven it up l send a pic as soon as I get it . Happy Sailing!

Here's a movie I made for facebook friends and family but I think it's worth putting in here. I'm really happy with this flick I think it's my best yet. There's a bit of SLW 90 at the start but the rest is the 68.

Oh and that extra gear of speed I mentioned above, I found it. It's called a Reflex 4 7.0 metre lol.

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Dezza said..

Great clip and excellent gybes!! The board colours look really good too

What boom is that? An x6 or something else?

It's an X6 200-250. The wide angle lens makes it look a lot wider than it actually is.

Thanks for the compliment on the gybes mate that really made my day

The truth is I crash and burn a fair bit but I have a bit of a kamikaze attitude towards my gybes. I'd rather go for it a bit more and have a few swims than play it safe. The colder the water gets the les adventurous my gybes get lol.

I was really surprised by the colours in the movie actually. I tried a new file format, I went for sony 1920x1080 60p HD instead of high rez avi. The file size came out pretty big, 1.07 GB for a 6 minute movie but it was worth it for the vibrant colours. I love the reflections going on in the sail it looks kind of psychodellic lol.