First session on the brand new mXr Love Machine board, designed by Martin Love. We needed to get up early as predictions were saying the wind would be at it's best around 11 AM. I guess they were pretty much right saying so. The wind was not super strong, best gusts (and gusty it was!) around 25 kts. As MvM did not have his 6.3 available he had to settle fort either 5.8 or 7.1. 5.8 was too small, then when he changed to the 7.1 the wind increased and he took the 5.8 again . All this with the Love Machine 54. As I had the bigger sail and lower weight, I started with the Love Machine 49. First impression is really good. I like the soft feel of the board in the chop and the power you feel from the wide area between the straps. I absolutely LOVE the gybing, it's just sick and hard to get out of planing. Here the same width + volume around the masttrack and the nose area surely helps. Upwind is fine, certainly considering I was on asy fins today. I tried the UFO Wide 30 10% 20cm fin as well and did a high 68 peak and high 66 10s average on it. Not bad. The board both likes the Asy wide and Asy High Aspect (New Luderitz design). Nose rocker is lower than on my previous boards but I would not have said so if I were to judge only based on the feeling/behaviour of the board in chop. I tried the 54 as well with the 24 ASY HA and it works fine, in less wind the 26 will be the size to go for I think. The UFO 30cm fin lets the board ride higher on the water and gives it a more slalomy feel due to more vertical lift. So, the design works with a veriety of fin designs, all with their own lift characteristics, which I guess is a good thing as not everybody uses the same kind of fins. Mastfoot I put at 130 to start with, then moved back a bit to 128, like I usually do and it works really well either way. Just a matter of fine tuning rider/rigg/fin. First impression is very positive  so hopefully we get some more wind soon and see what happens. Looking forward to it.  Thanks to Steven van der Lelie for being so patient and wait so long for his board to finally arrive. I take it you found it worth waiting for....