"It's waaaaaaaaaay too cold to go surfing." Ditto that. (Tip of the hat, as they say, to my cold weather brothers for whom weather like mine is "shorts" weather.)The NPAC is "inactive" to put a technical word to "flat." Local windswell is the name of the game, and there isn't much of that. There's nothing on the horizon wave wise or weather wise that looks like much of an improvement. National Weather Service is indicating a "cold front" moving south, heading our way. That cracks me up. You mean colder than this? Lord have mercy. I'm hoping for rain, that would warm things up at least into the 40's....maybe. If the weather geeks are right then we're also looking at rain over Christmas.
I'd try the beaches if the temps rose up and the wind didn't, but I tweaked my back day before yesterday and it's definitely not ready for prime time, the preliminaries or even warm-ups for that matter.
On another note...I've sold off almost all of my laydown surfboard quiver in favor of a full line of SUPs (which will probably mean two SUPs at a time since they're so expensive). I've got one laydown left, an 11' Pearson-Arrow big gun which I bought several years ago as a paddleboard. But laydown distance paddling was insanely boring, not to mention that it didn't do my neck any good either. So I'll be putting that up on Craigslist soon. Probably off it for $299 which is a great price 'cause the board's in good condition. ($300 bucks will almost buy the Infinity cf ottertail SUP paddle I've got on order...yeah, this sport can be expensive.)
I'm stoked though. I'll have the Angulo production 10-2 Perfect Wave which is a great all-arounder, and then coming soon is the custom epoxy Angulo Noserider, which is a sweet board for smaller waves (under head high, although I wouldn't be surprised if Ed's shape on this board let's you go bigger...much bigger). I plan to do full reviews of the boards soon. (That's "soon" Hawaiian scale.)
is that picture of the noserider? man, that looks sweet. in fact, it looks like *exactly* what i want. unfortunately, the angulos are among the most expensive sups around, i think. worth it, i'm sure; but still, in these times ... which means that the new starboard 10.5 is probably more suitable for my means.
ReplyDeleteHey ef,
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean, this stuff isn't cheap! I really like Ed's shapes and since I had a chance to really try out the noserider, I fell in love with it. It's light, responsive, fast, maneuverable and very stable. It almost defies logic it works so well. By the time I added up all the different costs for the custom, it worked out to be mostly comparable with some of the other good shapers like Ron House and Steve Boehne, so I felt like that's the price one pays for quality craftsmanship and design.
Same goes for the production boards which have the inherent good news/bad news characteristics of heavier but more durable.
I'm looking forward to reviewing these two boards at some point in the future but have been holding off because I'm still not clear in my own mind how I'm going to review them so that it makes sense to me, and will be helpful to others. But like the old "magic 8-ball" toy of years back, the answer is starting to become clearer with time.
Merry Christmas btw!
What are the specs of your upcoming noserider? Is Ed adding anything special to better its noseriding characteristics? Well, I for one can't wait until you get it and write a review. Maybe I'll just have to spring for one ...
ReplyDeleteThe specs are something like 10' X 29.75 X 4.24. When I first saw the board I didn't think much of it. It looked like a pig frankly. Then I rode it. It completely blew my mind.
ReplyDeleteI thought the tail was too pin-y and narrow and that would make the board very unstable to stand on. Wrong! The bottom configuration is concave nose into two double concaves that travel completely out the tail section. When you look at the tail from the side it looks very weird, like a birds beak. The deck is "recessed", i.e. you feel like you're standing in foot wells. Very different.
Since this is a custom epoxy, I know that Ed has a proprietary vacuum bagging technique that he developed with his son Mark, who is also a shaper. This technique allows for a stronger, lighter board by pressure regulating exacting amounts of resin. I've got an email in to Ed asking for more tech/spec info, so when I hear back from him, I'll pass it on.
The board paddles, glides and catches waves like a SUP, and surfs like a lay down performance longboard. It noserides like a lay down longboard. I have no idea how Ed has managed to make this happen, but it does. I can look at the component "parts" of the shape: outline, plan shape, rail shape, bottom configuration, rocker etc. and understand that, but in terms of knowing how he put it all together to make it work so well...it's a mystery to me. But that's what over 40 years of shaping all kinds of watercraft will do...make you an expert.
We were fortunate enough to have the board in my neighborhood for a couple of weeks before it went down south. We passed it around to a few folks, and three of us ordered noseriders from Ed right off. They should be here in January.
I'm a big fan of "try before you buy", so if get a chance, come on by and try this board out. You'll be amazed.
man o man, the more i read the more i want. think he'll ever make a production board out of it?
ReplyDeleteYes. My understanding is that the 2010 line of Angulo production SUPs will included the 10' Noserider and a 9-8 "shortboard" performance model. I think the planned roll out for those two new production models is Summer 2009, but I'm not at all certain about that.
ReplyDelete