Hi folks,

I have been to the Demo Weekend at Borth yesterday. I was really surprised about how much kit was on show. There were around 50 boards and surely just as many sails. Many of the boards were still wet, proof of them having been used the day before. But yesterday, on Sunday, there just wasn¥t any descent wind. (At least until I left at around 4:00 pm)
Nevertheless there were about 13 sailors out with huge kit. One of them I noticed sailing a Starboard racer, 1 m wide, and a 12.5 !! sail. But even with that it was an on and off the plane game.

So the show is great but without the essential force of nature the highlight such as testing kit is missing.

WOW what a day Sunday was, as Joe said I got there mid morning & met up with Steve & Ann. As I had the Wife, Tracey with me we had a gr8 day chatting about windsurfing the new kit and watching the guys out on the big kit bobbing along doing nothing. I got my hands on an AHD Diamond 87 and a BIC Logic 8.8 did nothing for 15 mins apart from bob but the wind swung off shore and kicked in enough for me to get up on the plane. Spent the next 1hr or so in planing conditions going up & down gybing & tacking with ease. Then Steve came along & took the kit off me minus the 8.8 which was swopped for a 7.8!! Steve managed to plane and have a gr8 time until the wind dropped off totally. We then hit the beach & had a small BBQ before driving home.
The only question we had was: AL where were you all day?. All the kit sails and people and not a sight of you?

Ian... I saved myself for today... You should have been here!!

First thing this morning I was in the estuary teaching a couple teenagers to windsurf, then as the tide dropped, the wind started picking up. I went around to the front and everyone was out on big boards with 7.0-8.0m sails, but I could see wind coming in, so grabbed myself a Starboard Freesex 115 and a 6.2m sail and went out on that...Straight onto the plane, a couple of nice little jumps on the way out, and before long everyone else was after some smaller kit. The Freesex was nice, really easy to gybe, but also really slow in a straight line. I also tried a JP FSW 98, a Bic Tribal 8'3" (84 litres and I was now on a 5.7m sail). I stayed on that for most of the session, but also had a go on a Tabou 3Style 364...Not quite sure what the 364 refers to, presumably the fact that its a '3'style board and is probably 64cm wide.. 108 litres and REALLY nice. It planes ridiculously early, was really responsive and 'slidey' in feel and also really fast and therfore jumped nicely too.

All in all a good day in the sun with a decent, constant wind. Much better than Sunday which was pretty much windless, and also better than Saturday as it was windier and windy for longer... Looks like I picked the right day!!

Al.

P.S. I'll update the diary later with full details.

Al maybe your right, maybe I did miss a gr8 day 2day but the point is that I had a gr8 day & like you had 2 miss a coule of days 2 get stuff done!!
See you soon, Next W-end on the water?

Hi Ian
Just a line to tell you about monday at the demo.What a great day fighting for kit to take out in classic borth conditions so user friendly for every one that went out.I am beginning to think it is you with the wind jinsk.All i could get hold of was a fanatic cross 110 with the only fin i could find out of the trailer myself , which was abit small and a 6.6 f2 sail.Well over powered i wore the skin off my hands blasting.the board was brill,so confident on it i was starting my first jumps in control.The demo has worked i have got to get one of those boards.PS a little BQ ,it was 2lb of sausage and a chicken.

Steve....
Seeing as you are actually going to be buying a new board in the not too distant future, you really should have made an effort to try more boards at the demo... The Cross is OK, but theres such a wide range of other suitable boards, how do you know that the Cross will be the BEST for you?

From my experiences, the Cross is OK at just about everything, but isn't particularly outstanding in any one area or particularly exciting to sail. It planes relatively early, is fairly fast, jumps OK, gybes OK etc etc. It isn't very responsive though and so isn't great when you get it out in waves (even the normal onshore mush that we get at Borth). This lack of responsiveness really can be a problem in waves, but saying that it also translates into a board that is steady and controllable in stronger winds and choppy conditions.

The other boards I've tried of a similar size tend to become a bit too bouncy and uncontrollable once the wind gets up and the sea roughens up a bit. The other boards I've tried have also all stood out in certain areas:

The Max2Air was really nice in the waves and just loved to carve around on the face of small to medium waves. It wasn't particulalrly early planing, and it did become a handful in stronger winds.

The Starboard Freesex was REALLY slow, but gybed like it was on rails.

The Tabou 3Style 364 was early planing, REALLY fast and also really lively.

My favourites out of them for sailing at Borth would be either the Max2Air (if it didn't keep breaking...which I think was a one off), or the Tabou, but I would like to try it in stronger winds first.

However, despite all this waffling, as you know, I have ended up with the Cross, as at the time it was better to have that than the alternative which was no big board at all. It does its job OK, but isn't particularly exciting.

Al.