Hi everyone. This may be related to the discussion about justal's delaminated board. Did you have any success with that, btw ?

Anyway, I posted this in my local (Durban) Forum and I'm copying it here in case anyone in this forum can give me some tips or share experiences. Here is the original post:

I don't know what to do. I sail an F2 Air and am just starting to sail in smaller waves and loving it. Only problem is I'm going through kit at an alarming pace. I can understand why the sail doesn't stand up to the punishment, but now I'm finding my board can't take it !

I recently noticed some cracks in the plastic between the rail and rear footpad along the one side. I have patched it with some fibreglass and I think it was reasonably successful but I notice the same thing is happening on the other side. And, very alarmingly, I now notice that the deck under the rear footpad just above the rail is very soft and I'm convinced that the flexing is causing the cracks.

It was a second hand board but I've only had it a year and I'm sure the guy before me can't have done that much damage as it was from JHB, I believe, and how many endo forwards do they get up to a stillbaai

My questions are:

1) What caused this in the first place ? Jumping ? I am jumping quite a lot and perhaps my landings are too heavy ? Is it just that I'm a heavy sailor (+-90kg) ? Is this a particularly badly made board ? I've also heard of delamination and want to know if this could be blamed for the softness of the deck... water definitely got in to the initial cracks.

2) Is it repairable ? Is there anything I can do ? All I can think of is removing the entire footpad and reinforcing the whole area with fibreglass. Can it be professionally repaired ? Who would do it ?

3) How can I avoid this in future ? Is there a stronger brand of board I should go for or custom or what ?

Any thoughts, comments, suggestions would be appreciated. Donations, too, this is starting to affect my budget quite seriously

Axxis.... No joy with my Cross yet, its pretty bad now and going to a shop for professional treatment next week (if theres anything they can do for it).

As far as yours goes, then its difficult to say whats causing it. Could it be due to the heating and cooling without releasing the vent srew?? That seemed to be the general consensus about what heppen to mine. Are the crack just in the gel coat, or do they go right the way through to the core?

I shouldn't imagine it had anything to do with the brand, although some manufacturers do have different construction classes in the sane board which may be worth looking into. Most boards are made at the same factory and most use the same technologies these days.

One thing though, most boards have a polystyrene core, which you're not supposed to use fibreglss resin with when you repair them as the resin dissolves the core. You should use epoxy.

Al.

Hi again.

Have had some feedback on my local forum. Most seem to think that the damage could also be caused by heating / cooling or just compression of the eps core by landing on the spot. Definite warnings about only using epoxy resin !

Am going to consider having it professionally done. Will get some advice from the local shop soon & see what they think. If I'm forced to replace it, I will do the job myself and use it as a back-up board. In the meantime I did a reinforcement job on the rear deck of an old board using chopped strand fibre glass and it seems to have been quite successful so far. Obviously a temporary solution, though.

cheers
James

I've now sent my Cross off to be repaired professionally. I haven't heard back from them yet, I just hope it CAN be repaired.

How are you getting on with yours??

I'm also waiting for a boom to return from being repaired/replaced as well!!!

Al.