West Coast ----- Tino is bringing Sunova's to YOU.....now!

[SUPcheat]

Hey, looks like I can be there at Privates if it's tomorrow.

Watched Pleasure Point today just after 1PM.  Thought it quieted down, but I just caught a lull when the waves were double overhead. Bigger ones started breaking again soon enough.  A few doughty surfer out there, and a sponger, but not much surfing going on.

  I guess catching the monsters at the right moment was pretty hard.  When I finally saw a guy on a wave face, it looked to be 4x overhead, the big ones were finally coming in and I watched for a while.  Very few rides for the small handful of guys braving the stuff out there.

There was no meaning to the term tide, because things were tsunami like.  The water over the cliffside reefs would suck out and dry out completely to give exposed reef quite a ways out, then the waves would come back in and cover it back up to a couple of feet.  I have to date never seen anything quite like that in Santa Cruz.

The Hook was more manageable up to double overhead, but still a lot of clean up type sets, a lot of proners floating around and trying to paddle back out, and not as many waves caught for the huge number coming in and the very large number of proners out.

There were a few stand up guys down around Sharks and Privates that looked like they were doing OK, but between the wind and the radical rips and waves, I decided to defer going out.  There were some nice offshsore winds putting up a beautiful spray off the tops of some of the incoming waves. 

From the shore, it was magnificent to see.  I would have been in churning, burning whitewash survival mode.

[Dooner]

Just got back from the Lane, middle peak was huge and breaking way out the back, I surfed indicators on the 8'10" Speeed, it was pretty fun despite the chops and current. At the top section of indicators I was paddling non stop just to stay in place.  Tomorrow should be fun!

[SUPcheat]

I wonder if that was you and another SUP I saw at Steamer Lane surfcam when the light was fading.  I didn't see anybody else out there.

[Dooner]

It's possible, I was out until around 5 I think.. There were a few sups out at Cowells when I came in, but probably weren't visible on the lane camera.

[centralcoastsup]

Are you having the demo day at Private's or Capitola today?

[Dooner]

Are you having the demo day at Private's or Capitola today?

Yes, we are heading there right now

[Dooner]

Are you having the demo day at Private's or Capitola today?

Yes, we are heading there right now

Privates

[SUPcheat]

Unfortunately, the demo was wasted on me.  I went down and saw the boards, but nobody with them. I got down there a little after 1:30PM.

I saw the ocean, which looked rough, and thought I should go out to see if I could even surf or stand in it.  Once I was out there, I didn't want to go to shore break to get back. 

Conditions were at the limit of my survival capabilities.  At various points, I lost the lenses from my sunglasses, lost the board's nose protector, almost lost an extra piece of wetsuit I use as a left knee padding, found my impact vest curled under my armpits etc. and came back to find a long gash on my nose that I have no idea how it happened.

I made it down to Sharks for a few washboard rides, then BLAM BLAM BLAM I found myself down around Trees without exactly knowing how I got down there, I was so disoriented from the slams that pushed me there. I was barely standing up at all, mostly just knee kayaking.

Things got a bit quieter after a while, and I met member Subber out on the larger demo Sunova looking pretty comfortable on it considering the chop.

My neighbor wound up on the 9'1" Sunova Acid when he came down.  He was doing some radical turns on a couple of waves, much more so than the Prowave in my recollection, but he told me it was really hard to stand up on.  It is a somewhat smaller board than the 9'3" Prowave, and he is probably about 170 soaking wet.  However, neither board is made for stand up stability vs. wave performance.

Of course, me dying is what my neighbor considers "fun" and he said it was really "fun" out there today.

Anyway, hope to try the boards at some point in more moderate conditions. I was nice to meet Subber, too, but I wish I could at least have demoed some capabilities other than falling off and getting caught on the inside.

[Sunova_Tino]

Hey Supcheat. We saw you. I think you met Jonah and he had those boards with him always. They stay with him. He will post here and you guys can hook up. John and subber had some fun today.

I'm heading south tomorrow afternoon so who knows. Maybe the weather stays nice tomorrow. Greetings from creek I was supposed to tell everyone here. He is back up in myrtle by now. Wilmington demo tomorrow.

Tino


Thanx,
Tino

[Subber]

Glad to have met you Cheat and also Tino, Dooner and John.
Yeah, those were pretty tough conditions, especially early on.

I got there about 12:30 pm.  The tide was still pretty high and the
waves were very big & gnarly.  Got into the water about 2 pm, so the tide
had dropped quite a bit (the low was at 5pm) but it was still pretty bumpy out there.
I'd only surfed Privates a few times before when it was much smaller - more normal days.
I was surprised at how crowded it was but I think because Pleasure Point and other
areas were 3x overhead a lot of people came to Privates today since it was more reasonable
but still had pretty big set waves.

I was on the Sunova Style XL - I believe it was the 10'6" 32" wide - so a big board.
Wow, the Sunova's are beautiful - really nice - can't say enough about their appearance.
Seemed to be very high quality - really impressed.

The Style felt very good under my feet.  Of course it was stable and I found it easy to go over
the big balls of white water and to handle the backwash bumps, etc.
I got some good noserides!

I think the larger Sonova for those particular waves would have been the Sonova Speed - I did see Dooner ripping up
on some of the larger waves on the Speed earlier in the day. The waves were big and closing out on you
unless you had a lot of speed - on the few big waves I caught I was not able to go fast enough to not get
closed out.   However, I think with smaller side bites the Style would have had less drag & more speed and I could have possibly made some of the bigger waves that I caught - Those waves were much bigger than normal at Privates, I do believe.

Later in the afternoon, it calmed down a bit and I went where it was less crowded and the
waves were a bit smaller and maybe slower.  There, I got some good noserides.  We'd just barely
waxed the nose so it was still a bit slippery.  Still, I was up about eight inches from the tip in parallel
stance - hanging out up there for pretty long time on several waves - really fun - easy to steer up there -
then, a nice cross step back and easily turn with the pin tail - nice!

Tino said they might do another demo trip in February!
I'd look forward to that - I'd like to try the Style 10'6" 30 inches wide.
Thanks guys!

[SUPcheat]

Yep, I did a little tire kicking on the lawn where the boards were when I first got there.  They are beautiful boards, and feel really solid to the touch. 

I didn't throw them off the cliff onto the rocks or run over them with my car, though

[supthecreek]

is that something you usually do to test a board?

Pretty cool that you had some great waves to ride!

Go see my buddy Andy Beswick, owner of "Good Luck Tatoo" in Santa Cruz and get inked up with something sweet.... Andy is a Surfer from Cape Cod.... say hi for me.... he is good people.
 

[SUPcheat]

Inked up?  I think at my age the only thing left is R.I.P.

[supthecreek]

perfect!
Andy would make that look awesome

[Sunova_Tino]

Hey guys. So just to clear things up a bit. In Santa Cruz Dooner actually has the boards with him. You can always get in touch with him and try some out. We are in the process of getting more to him too.

I'm off south now. Today (Monday) passing Santa Monica, Huntington Beach and San Clemente. Tomorrow (Tuesday) San Diego and back. Hopefully I can squeeze Santa Barbara in before I finally head back home to Thailand checking if the the factory is still making boards.


Thanx,
Tino