Ive been having troubles with braking boards lately. One good session will most times end up creasing the rail under my front porttack footstrap or a serious delam under the strap. My boards are carbon epoxy production, which I would have thought would be the strongest- like the mid to late 90`s mistrals, kinetic/windtechs and so on. They lasted years of punishment, and they were race boards! Are boards getting lighter/weaker so much so that we have to chuck them out before the seasons out?
Mate, I am inclined to agree. Well at least for the mass produced boards.
One decent session out on my carbon epoxy wave board put a decent size pressure dent in the deck. Never had a board look second hand so fast.
quite the contrary here... I have been using JPs for the past 5 years and from year to year the build quality actually seems to have improved. I used to go through a per season... last years boards for the first time didn't go soft or delaminated.
I have to add that I am probably a bit heavier than the average sailor... but still last years JP pro models (and I assume the same goes for this years) are in my opinion second to none as far as quality goes. Either way, JP has been good with warranty claims in the past and always swapped out boards that had issues no questions asked.
Got some not so nice things to say about Starboard... but won't post that here until I have my current warranty claim settled with them... let's just say I am less then impressed at this stage... I'll post an update once I hear back from them...
I agree. There are two boards in the garage that are in repair! Just a couple of jumps .... great thrills for sure..... then days and days of mess getting repairs done... its not on!!!
I remember the 2000 and 2001 season out in west oz and alot of starboard and jp were folding.... After that they sorted the construction it seemed.. I had a2004 74 that had a hammering for afew years with no problems... Not seen any jp snapfor a while either...
The Angulos ive got now are boom proof an still pretty light..
With the cost of materails and labour skyrocketing this year margins on these oversea production boards are getting smaller for the manufacturer, board company, importer, and then retailer. So cheaper materails are starting to find their way in to the consuction so as to keep these magin the same previous seasons. Now we heard that they have locked their workers out by closing the factory,so as to stop paying bonus the worker have asked for ,to keep labour costs down and margins up.
Welcome to the global market !!!
Wasn't going to put this up... but this topic is probably about as pertinent as it gets. Last session... just over 2 years old.
Hi Matt
What you have there is a boards which cost $350 to 400 USD for materails and labour to build ,by people who have never sailed and have no idea why this has happen and have no incentive to make sure this don't happen again.
At least it was a great session... 
Whats interesting about the construction techniques is that there would only be minimal extra cost for a few extra layers of cloth, and not much extra labour, to make a much stronger board...
Exactly.
We strenghten all our wave boards in this area on the bottom with extra layers of S glass on a bi axis to the centre line to give the bottom more fibres for greater strenght. We also do the same on the deck between the front footsrap inserts and the back of the mast track , to stop the decks buckling and tearing apart from flat landings.
There is is a very little weight gain and cost increase in the process.
if your as board killer you have 2 options
1. learn how to jump properly
2. swap to a brand thats good with warranty claims and only ever sail a board still in warranty
alternatively i prescribe 1 tea spoon of concrete.
Hi Keef
9oz Carbon/ kavar/ S glass/ or Bi/axis is still 9oz!!!!
We are more constrained to weigth compaired to strength , as we must build the highest strenght for the lowest weight ratio of any manufacturing process
for the less cost.
Yes 9oz would be better to build sailboards out of , but you guys would never buy them once you picked them up in a shop!
It taken a **** load of protos boards over the 20 years to work out the best consruction at the lowest weight without snapage, this is were the team riders come in to play. It more important to us to make sure EVERY board to go out is 100% and will not come back as a warrenty claim .
As I have said earlier we have work out how to build build you guys the lightest boards that will not snap ,compaired to the oversea boards.
We havent had a warrenty claim for the last 4 seasons both in OZ and Maui.
CA might have good construction methods but their quality control leaves alot to be desired.
OES construction seem to be top notch, I have an old OES waveboard for high wind days- if it ever snaps I'll be surprised. Super stiff and feels like you could drive over the thing but it does sacrifice a bit of weight vs cobra boards.
It's a pity you guys do not make slalom/speed boards as yes it's always good supporting the locals.
But what Bertie said, you can't keep abusing a bit of foam and expect it to survive.
Mkseven, Peter is building me a 106 litre slalom board at the moment to my design. I will post pics as soon as it is done.
I am trying to support the OZ guy,s by designing my own boards and getting them built. Trying a few different things, learning lots and having some fun along the way.
I would like to do some design on my next board...but would not know where to start to get my ideas to a shaper on the other side of the country. Also does this run in at the same cost as a mass produced board?
i think you misunderstood oes/A, i didnt meen to laminate the whole board just the stress area's and if 9oz is to heavy use 6oz, as you know bi/axis weave is only in 2 directions but with satin weave it is multidirectional and chain locking and is a very tight knitted cloth
as for preventing stress fractures what do you think about the box stringers , they are h100x8mm divinicell laminated with 3oz carbon twill weave, would it work or would it just add extra weight
we have used bi/axis weave before in reinforced areas eg under heel areas but found it used more resin to wet out properly compaired to the lay up we use now, but it is a good option if you don't want to use Carbon or Kevlar.
your box stringer will add strenght and weight, just be carefull were the stinger end , as this will be a focus point for stress and could lead to snaping the board .
But give them a try.
well done your board look good
Without giving too much away ,all our boards have a simular layup under the heel areas.
ill keep that in mind for the next time i make a board,but for now ill leave it up to you professional guys, do you know the Density (kg/m3) of the corecell, the didvi i used was (100kg/m3) i think, and 3mm top and 5mm bottom
i bought a hand-me-down oes wave 257 ( mainly white with red flames and black outline around graphics) a few years ago. the previous owner couldn't get his feet to stay in the straps when jumping and replaced the deck pads in an attempt to get more grip without success, then when i got it i had same problem, but realised it was because the screws for the straps were too far apart for the size of our/my feet (couldn't get any grip on the side of my feet), so i sunk some extra plastic screw thingies into the board to narrow them down and it made a huge difference - anyway, what i was wanting to get to was that when i cut out the holes for the inserts i was surprised how thick the deck was (compared to other boards i'd cut up and masacred) and can vouch for the build quality, even if they may be bit heavier than the productions, but i'm no board builder. it's the board u got/had mkseven
