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Orange Whip said.. jirvin4505 said.. Nsx viper at Cootharaba
I was camping around at Elanda when this was made
I remember not sailing this day due to low wind and talking to my mate about getting a light wind board. My mate says nah!!! why would you want one of them fat things!!!!
Well I was defiant and went and found me a fat board - best intermediate board choice I ever made
OW you know you want one
But I still reckon your big GO with a decent sized sail will do almost the same job
Cheers Jeff
Yes Jeff, I know what you're saying about the GO. I've been gearing up to get a bigger sail, got a cheap bigger boom recently and a good quality 58 fin cheap just looking for a sail but I won't go bigger than about an 8.5, I don't know how you guys handle those huge sails. I was curious about a custom build, the old GO has done a few kms now and won't last forever.
This probably fits in with all the Lightwind chatter in the forum at the moment ...
yep understand about the GO may be GONE at some stage - spend a lot of time myself looking at options.
Still reckon at your weight 75kgs there are a lot of easily available options especially if big sails are an issue
A few data points....
Early planing king of the lake (72kg) among my group of tryhards/improvers uses a large isonic 137? 85cm wide with ezzy freeride 7.5 zephyr sail, recently upgraded to 8.5 lion so he can really nail us when we are out on longboards. Its not officially how a large isonic should be used but it works amazingly well.
Last Sat I had a serious go at using my slalom 131 F2 sx (2006?) 240cm 80cm wide board ($300) (I'm very much a humble improver still with footstrap issues) who probably shouldn't be trying slalom boards
I was trying to find the lower wind range - so in what was for me JPSLW 9.5 ezzy lion 56cm fin kind of day I went out with the F2 sx 131 50cm fin 9.5 ezzy. Maybe board being carbon and much lighter than my wood JPSLW(large) made a difference. I had a great session getting familiar with the board. Lots of planing runs. On the water was also old GO 150 8.5 (Intermediate 90kg) getting much less runs than me. Carbon large JPSLW 7.5 ezzy zephyr (Experienced 85kg) getting slightly more runs and similar speed. I probably would have had an easier time on my JPSLW but I felt the 131 slalom performed well above its size especially at my weight. Big slalom boards rock as lightwind weapons.
Today light wind - my mate on his GO got spooked and rigged small 7.8m and me.. JPSLW rigged 9.5 ezzy well downhauled (wind usually drops). We went run for run - the JPSLW made upwind ground and was probably more easily on the plane. I reckon I got 2 extra runs as the wind died and was also able to stay on the plane longer as we went into wind shadow areas. There wasn't much board speed difference - I was surprised .. thinking I would smoke him!!
At debriefing my mate felt the difference was being under sailed for the conditions. Point being - old GOs (2005) are lightwind champions and sail size matters.
.. How do we use big sails?? Using my waterside reckoner when I get admonished for rigging big -I reckon 10kg body weight is 1sm of sail 95kg=9.5sm sail? So often think how can all those lightweight 70-80kg sailors use 8.5sm racing sails. This really amazed me at the Burrum windfest - little boards - little fins- big sails.
Simple answer .. We learnt to use big sails because we wanted to get going when all the lightweights were going - no fun schlogging around on the suggested sail when another meter of sail is guaranteed planing. I get into more trouble (break more boards) trying to get going under sailed than being overpowered in gusts with bigger sails when underway.
On topic. The nsx viper is made by peter and looks like a large slalom board. Lots of large slalom boards on the buy/sell all the time.
OW>If so, would it work out cheaper than buying a new big name mass production board?
..I reckon the best value on buy/sell is the rapid turn over of isonics as the racers upgrade.
Hope I learn to ride isonics some day
cheers Jeff
Keen Beginner