Will it downwind? Yes or No?

[Bean]

How about walk-ability (in all 4directions)

[PonoBill]

So... for example:
...does a high "death roll" score mean it excels at spitting a rider off or does it mean the rider is invincible?

For me it's a yes or no. Some boards do it, some don't. I think the king of death rolls is the Bark 14 dominator. when it's not spinning out of a glide it's digging the nose in and flipping over as briskly as a flapjack. A fine flat water raceboard, a terrible downwinder. For me anyway.

[Off-Shore]

The thing about Malikos is that when the wind is good, a coconut will make it to the harbor in about three hours. But anything you're not falling on and catching bumps with will be reasonably fast. Unless your name is Kalama, Baxter, Blish or Lenny you are not going to catch the Bullets on something other than a Bullet.

So OK, we'll start it here and see where it goes. Next downwind I do, unless conditions are amazing, is going to be on something less than ideal. Here's a start on the reporting criteria:

Run Length:
Time:
Conditions:
Board:
Length:  Width:   Thickness:
Style:
Weight:
Stability:
Glide performance-- small:
medium:
large swells:
Nose control--maneuverability:    Punching or pearling:
Holds a line across the face of a wave without rounding up or catching a rail:
Ability to cut across the wind and swell to get ashore:
Death roll:
Crosswind:


Any more?

PB, I'm going to tell you a story and it might explain why I'm the guy who posted these vids. When I was at college / university, we were given a project / competition. It involved one of the largest wind tunnels in the UK at the time, which was one of the few you could fit a car inside. We were told to design a wing / aeroplane on paper, based on the aerodynamic theory we had been taught, then build the wing / plane based on that theory, and test it inside the wind tunnel. The winner would be the one that had the best combination of the longest flight (in time) and that flew the furthest down the wind tunnel (distance) at a set fixed windspeed (inside the tunnel).

We were split into teams of two. I am good and fast at making things with my hands (or at least I was), and the "build it and experiment" type of person. My project partner was the theoretical geek. We won. Not because we spent an age on the theory, planning and calculating using the formulas we had been taught, what we would build, but because I insisted on foregoing all theory and making what we thought would work and physically trial and error testing it (outside the wind tunnel). We experimented with different wing / foil shapes, fuselage lengths, nose weights etc, rather like the Wright Brothers, instead of using formula and paper... We won, not because we got the longest combination of time and distance (we were in the top 3), but because my geek friend somehow managed to work backwards from the dimensions of the design we built using the aerodynamic formulas we had been taught, and showed on paper how well our design should perform, accurately predicting the time in the air and the distance travelled.. The perfect team. I guess fact always comes before theory..

[spookini]

PB, I'm going to tell you a story

Thus confirming my belief that the safest flying machines are the ones you build in your garage..

[Chilly]

Off-Shore, your story reminds me of some of the race boards that were designed by engineers on CAD programs designed for yachts and sailboats. They didn't work so well. It was the prone paddle board shapers that had a better understanding and real world experience that made the best design for a race boards. You can also find it in SIC were there R&D for downwind boards is in their backyard.

[baddog]

But I've just bought a Starboard Tandem inflatable 16ft x 32" 450L and intend to try DWing that, so I'll let you know if that just gets "blown along by the wind" or whether the experience could really be described as downwinding according to my own criteria.

I'll have to bet you'll hate this big time.  I had a 12'6"Astro Touring with the same reverse camber and it was completely unsurfable.  Maybe I was to light, but even standing on the tail, that reverse camber would let the nose belly touch down and it was all over.  The belly touched, the inflatable stiction straighten and braked the board and I was launched.

Inflatables ride "on" and not "in" the water; getting blown around is the fun part.

Luv to see a video on this one:)

[Off-Shore]

I'll have to bet you'll hate this big time.  I had a 12'6"Astro Touring with the same reverse camber and it was completely unsurfable.  Maybe I was to light, but even standing on the tail, that reverse camber would let the nose belly touch down and it was all over.  The belly touched, the inflatable stiction straighten and braked the board and I was launched.

Inflatables ride "on" and not "in" the water; getting blown around is the fun part.

Luv to see a video on this one:)

We have wind forecast for this coming week, so I am going to try a few more boards time permitting.. One of them is a friend's RedPaddle Explorer which is 12-6 x 32 or something, but it is a big big wide board and will need a lot of wind to get it going.. I'm also hoping to redo some of the ones where there was not enough wind to really see them on a downwind including the SB 12-6 x 30 Cruiser..

In the meantime some Mistral M1 iSUPs on a downwind that I found online

[Off-Shore]

It's been a while since there was a board available and downwind conditions existed on the same day. That day arrived today after our monthly time trial, when I got to borrow a Laird LXR 12-6 x 27.5" Race board. At 7" thick, 225L and 22.5lbs / 10.5kgs it is a real nice stable board in the flat and fast... but will it downwind?


Apologies for lens smudges at start.

[Area 10]

It's been a while since there was a board available and downwind conditions existed on the same day. That day arrived today after our monthly time trial, when I got to borrow a Laird LXR 12-6 x 27.5" Race board. At 7" thick, 225L and 22.5lbs / 10.5kgs it is a real nice stable board in the flat and fast... but will it downwind?


Apologies for lens smudges at start.

Nice video . But with the greatest respect, that was "paddling with the wind behind you" rather than what I think of as downwinding. Flat water boards tend to do well in those conditions. But what about actually surfing bumps left and right, and connecting them up? That's where most flat water boards show their limitations, but for most people that is the essence of downwinding. Also, they can be difficult to get on a plane, require a huge amount of footwork, be difficult to steer, and tend to sit high on a bump when riding it. None of these considerable shortcomings will show up in conditions like you had here.

Interesting to see the Laird board though. I'm sure that many of us have not seen one before.

[Off-Shore]

Area 10. You are right. The conditions on this today were in between paddling downwind and downwinding. However at the end of the run the wind and waves were enough IMHO to call downwinding and the board was surprisingly stable and easy to paddle in these challenging conditions. I'll get it out again in bigger conditions though. We're actually using this board in a 4 x 400m 4 person relay next Sunday. Each team has to have one female member. This is the start of the Hong Kong Stand Up Paddle Association race series. Should be fun.

[Eagle]

Off-shore, here are some boards to add to your interesting thread.  All can DW reasonably well as long as you stay powered up on the glide.  Dominator - Touring - Bullet v2 - and Jimmy Lewis M14.  Dominator and Touring have been out in 20 kts to 30 and handled fine - the Touring does get a bit squirrelly though when you weight the pintail.   Dominator must not have the nose pearl as it self-steers very hard left and right.  Bullet v2 is super fast except in steep chop - and M14 handles big wind and the rough stuff with aplomb.  Best 

[Off-Shore]

Eagle. Great to see someone else downwinding and trying out different boards. I have been downwinding on a Bark Dominator 14' off Long Island last summer. I know exactly what you mean about the self steering issue. But if you can control this it actually downwinds really well. I've also been lucky enough to paddle the SIC Bullet 14 V2 here and with it being lighter than my V1 TWC it is an excellent downwind board. If you get a chance I'd love to see some vids of these boards in action on a downwinder.

[Eagle]

Maybe some day will get around to posting online but for the most part only send my mov files to zoners friends and family as they are shot and viewed at 60p - some filmed at 120 and 240 fps.  A lot of my posted images are cropped screenshots of my emailed mov files.  Am currently in DR right now and cannot wait to get back home to process my sailing bodysurfing and SUP files.  Wind is 25 kts everyday 28C with 2m reef breaks - so much fun surfing this at the moment.  Best 

[Eagle]

The Dominator has a lot of area to stand on when planing which makes it a very stable platform at higher speeds.  When you see the pintail of the Touring you can imagine when you stand back off the deck pad the board becomes squirrelly in steeper deeper waves.  In small waves it planes easy and is actually very fast with very little drag.  The weights of the boards without fins are 26.5 for the Dom and V2 - 27.5 for the Touring Carbon - and 28.5 for the M-14.  So much easier to get the V2 to plane in lighter winds compared to the M-14 - a couple of pounds makes a huge difference - the V2 is super fast.

[Off-Shore]

Eagle. Great to see those boards all together for comparison. I'm looking for a cheapish 2nd hand board for general paddling and downwinding in Long Island this summer, so the Bark Dominator is on my list, and the good guys at Main Beach in Wainscott are looking out for something for me.