Surfing the New 6-10 Ward Coffey "Power Biscuit"

I have no real idea what to call this board. All boards have names right? "Power Biscuit" was all I could come up with. Feeble, I know.

First off, here's the dims: 6-10" X 16" X 23" X 16" X 2 7/8". Marko Styrolite Foam...it's really light and strong. Glassing sched: 6 and 4 on top, 6 on the bottom. Bottom config: single concave into double barrel concaves with VEE out the back.

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I was totally chomping at the bit to get this new board in the water. This was a design I've been thinking about for a while. It evolved from the revelation that came with the 10-0 Angulo Custom SUP I've been riding for the last several months. This Angulo SUP is a big, thick, wide, stand up paddle surfboard, and it surfs better than any longboard I've ever owned. It's more versatile, stable, fast, maneuverable, nose rideable...it does it all, and it does it better. If Ed can do this with a SUP, can larger dimensions be shaped into a "short" board in the right blend and balance to create a laydown surfboard that would do what I want it to do as a "shortboard?" That was the question I hypothesized, and the answer was, "Yes!"

It works! I surfed it today in decent waist to chest high waves that gave me the opportunity to put the board through it's paces. Today was a good test, because if it could perform in surf like today's, it could perform in really good, high energy surf too. (And I'm going to get a chance to try that out in the next several days.)

I first paddled out at Roots, which is a spot that breaks only when there is swell and at a minus low tide. Eric said it was working good yesterday, today it wasn't all that good. But I got a couple take-offs that let me know the board was stable, a good paddler, and a good wave catcher. Waves at Roots were inconsistent and really lacking in energy, with sets swinging too wide to set up for the main section. (The swell was more punchy yesterday for sure.) So, after a couple waves I paddled through the kelp beds to Scimi's, which surprisingly had only one guy at the 1st Peak.

That was when I found out that the board was a keeper. 1P Scimi's put up some long walls, punctuated with enough sections to hit the lip, drive off the bottom, wiggle through the flats and floater some crumbling white water sections with stability, speed and maneuverability. Nice!

Ward and I had a good conversation re fins, and I eventually decided on the Future Fins AM1's instead of the larger AM2's. Good choice. This is plenty of fin for this board at my weight. Since I love fin stuff so much, I had Ward install five fin boxes which would allow for a tri-fin set-up as well as running as a Quad (AM1 front, SB1 rear). Today, I rigged it as a tri-fin for it's maiden surf because I wanted something familiar to relate too. (I've been running my Angulo Custom as a three fin for a while now, so the "feel" is familiar.) My first wave was a little squirrelly. (What do you expect coming off a 10-0 longboard!) But it all got better from there. I got my "surf legs" right quick, and was able to surf the board with control and confidence.

The board floats, paddles, and catches waves as I had hoped. It surfs better than I thought it would, being more fluid and loose than I thought it might be. And this is only the first time I've surfed it. As I get to know this board better, and get more comfortable on it, it's just going to get more and more FUN! It takes a while for me to get to know a board, so the review on this one will have to come after a couple months. But at this point, I see no reason why this board isn't going to be a complete and total WINNER, thanks in large part to the skilled craftsmanship of master shaper Ward Coffey!

May 3, 2009 (Su)

In: 1345
Out: 1515
AT= 56F
WT= 52F
Wx: Low clouds with light rain
Tide: .3' Rising to 1.3'
Wind: Calm to light to moderate southwesterlies
Sea Surface: Glassy in the kelp to light wind ripples
6-10 Ward Coffey EPS (Marko Styrolite)/Epoxy Custom

Fin set-up: Thruster/Quad with Future Fins AM1 tri-fin set-up and SB1 rear quad set-up.
Bathymetry: Rock reefs
Deep Water Swell and Wave Face Heights CDIP Archive
Buoy: NWS (Nearshore)
1330: 2.0 feet @ 10.5 W
1400: 2.0 feet @ 11.1 W (2 - 3 ft. faces)
1430: 2.0 feet @ 13.3 SW
1500: 2.0 feet @ 10.5 W (2 - 4 ft. faces)
1530: 2.0 feet @ 13.3 SW
1600: 2.3 feet @ 15.4 WSW (2 - 4 ft. faces)