Fanatic Hawk 2015

My very first impression of this board was that it kind of reminded me of my Tabou 3S. with it's curvy outline and scoopy nose rocker with a flat run through the tail and generous double concaves, the hawk has a little bit of a freestyle wave vibe about it.I wonder if the design is influenced by the sucess of the FSW genre? The next thing I noticed was the heavily domed deck. I'm not overly fond of domed decks but I understand the need for it. if you want the best of everything the answer is you can't have it. There's always a trade off somewhere and the high volume and fine rails of the hawk require a domed deck. It turned out to be not as much of an issue with a bigger board like the 113 hawk as it is on my Tabou 3S's. In fact I got used to it almost imediately.

Looking at the info printed on the board I notice fanatic claims a sail range of 5.0 to 8.0 metre. I think that's a bold statement but it's halfway to being true so far. I have ridden the board with my NCX 8.0 metre and to my suprise it felt great, even with the standard 38 cm fin. I thought the 38 cm fin would be way to small for the 8.0 but it turned out to be ok. Not perfect, but quite usable. One of the first things I did when I got the board home was measure the tail at the one foot mark and it came in at a slender 43 cm, compared to the 66cm overall width. I became concerned at this point as by my best guess I would only be able to run a max fin size of 41-42 cm based on that tail width. My concerns turned out to be groundless as after using the 8.0 metre in powered up conditions I would maybe go up to a 39cm fin for the 8.0 but for for my 82 kilos any bigger seems unnecessary. I have also ridden the Hawk 113 with a 7.5 NCX and the 38cm fin was actually feeling a tiny bit to big with this sail. Not from the point of view of being out of control, more a case of feeling unnecessary and a smaller fin would do. I plan on running 7.0 and 7.5 NCX's with this board and I'm thinking of a couple of 35 and 37 select freerides to go with it. There's no need to over fin this board. it simply doesn't need it. It's a very easy board to get on the plane using passive planing techniques only. As for running a 5.0 metre sail on this board, well I suppose it's possible but why would you want to. It's not an issue for me anyway I'll be on my tabou 3S 86 when it's 5.0 metre weather. Personally the smallest sail I would use on this board would probably be my 6.5 NCX but more likely the 7.0 NCX will be the smallest.

Speed and gybes, the Hawk is ok at the former and excellent at the latter. I think the supplied choco 38 cm fin is letting the package down a bit actually as I was having some spin out issues and one of the points of these types of boards is you can push them as hard as you like. The problem is after a while I was getting a bit frustrated with the fin and started easing off a bit. That's no good at all as this board can be pushed very hard indeed both in a straight line and through turns. I was able to reduce the spin out issues a lot by moving the mast foot forward about an inch, I was running it in the middle with the 8.0 metre and this turned out to be a bit to far back. The board felt more balanced and comfortable in the new position. In my defense it was only the second time on the board and I don't have it dialed in yet. Speed wise, the hawk is nothing special on a tight reach but if you pull away a bit and lock it in the Hawk accelerates nicely and puts on a bit of pace.

The Hawk pops up and rides nice and high on the water and rolls up onto the tail for a nice and small wetted surface. This board doesn't feel loggy at all like some freeride boards do sometimes. Despite this, the Hawk is incredibly smooth in chop and maintains it's own trim with only a token amount of input from the rider. This board feels like it's on auto pilot half the time. For intermediates transitioning into smaller and higher performance boards this is gold. Fanatic have done a fantastic job in this regard.

Carve gybing the Hawk is also great fun. I found that the rails had just enough bite in power gybes to give a gratifying knifey feeling while simultaniously being smooth and controlled. For people looking to take their gybes to a higher level, once again this is gold.

Last but not least, I love the paint job. It's my favourite paint job ever. Some boards look like an air strike on a paint factory but The Hawk bamboo comes across as bright and stylish. And speaking of bamboo, I've always wanted a wooden deck board. This is my first and I love it. The baboo deck feels extremely impact resistant. I have no qualms about jumping this board.

Sorry about the wall of text but it's a great board and there's a lot to tell.

Great and detailed review!

As for fins give some thought to using race fins instead of FSW types. I run Black project race fins on all my FSW boards now under 5 - 7.5 metre sails and they are far better that the curvy FSW types. They grip better, go faster, gybe better and spin out less. I sail almost exclusively in rough water and would not go back to curvy fins now. The designs have come a long way.

Great detailed review Cluffy. Gotta love a nice plug-and-play free-ride board, and the new Hawks sound like a winner. Make sure you bring it up on October. It should be a sweet board here on those 12-16 knot days. Oh, and bring the fancy back camera thingy. Keep to check that out too.

Thanks for the input on fins fellas. I though seriously about a couple of select S1's for the hawk but I have some slalom gear that I'm going to keep so I went for 35-37-39 select edge freeslams.

Joe my old youtube and vimeo vids are gone but I have a couple of vids on my current vimeo page. One is the hawk vid and the other is some footage of my patrik formula II with fairly mental downwind burst in it. Well it felt mental anyway lol. Don't forget there's 70cm's of fin down there that most of the time has it's own agenda. I also have a pretty good vid of my 3S 86 in some stormy weather but I haven't encoded it yet.

Phil, don't worry I'll bring everything except the formula gear to SWR. I hope we get a bit more wind that 16 knots another 25 knot day would be awesome

nice choice on the edge freeslams, just be careful not to kick the trailing edge those babies are sharp. Very aptly named fins.

Thanks Cluffy, great review!

Great review and a great board, I got the 2012 hawk 110 a few years ago and love it for the same reasons.

I have had a 013 111 bamboo hawk for a while and had a few sessions now. Really needs a 6.5 or bigger sail. Started off the first few times on a 5.8 koncept and wasn't real impressed. But soon as had a 6.6 on it was sweet. I have gone to single back strap as I gybe better and only sail it in the bay where its rougher.
The one time on the lake at LG done 35 easily.
Have a 111 falcon as well but they are completely different boards . would be on the hawk before the falcon.
Hawk is surplus to my needs now as finally got my old favorite F2 back from being repaired.

Had a go on a 2011 / 110L Hawk today in an epic SW (gusting up to 30knots) with a 4.7m freeride sail.
So the conditions on Moreton Bay were obviously not conducive to the board - choppy and as gusty as, but I wanted to give it a crack as was looking at buying it.
I was surprised how nicely it went through the chop. Had a couple of goes at jumping it over some larger chop and went ok.
The thing that surprised me the most was that I just plugged my rig in and away I went - it was comfortable and was as quick as smaller boards that were on the water. This could have been due to the amount of wind and my comfortable sailing position being close to the current owners but I didn't need to change anything during the session. It would have been nice to give it a go on a less epic day with larger gear (which is what I want it for) but thems the brakes.
I decided not to buy it as there was too much wear and tear including pin bubbles in the gel coat on the bottom of the board, so I thought I would need to upgrade again in 12 to 24 months.
So I guess I will just keep looking or save my pennies and buy a brand spanka!!!
cheers

A bit of an eye opener today! I tried the 6.5 NCX in a strong at times westerly today and it felt fantastic. Better than the other sails even. What a blast, big overpowered bear aways anytime you like and who cares about the chop and some laydowns gybes that would make my slalom board jealous. It felt awesome and the bloody thing was going like a rocket. I wish to modify my original comment about the speed of the 113 hawk being ok, it's way better than ok it's bloody quick.

Here's todays numbers gpsteamchallenge.com.au/sailor_session/show?date=2015-05-10&team=9 . For a freeride board in chop that will do me!

One thing I failed to mention in the original post was that the 2015 hawks are a new shape. I've had it next to the older model and they are still very similar. Only a few subtle differences the most notable being the outline.