A day to remember, Dunkie at Horst.
The day started early and the wind slowly increased throughout the day. Numerous rainsqualls with fierce gusts arrived. The water was really choppy. I cranked the shit out of the downhaul and it paid off. Took Monster and a Z33. The fastest run was insane. I thought I'd better gybe, but just in front of the shore line a gust was creating whitewater on a perfectly flat patch. I could count the leaves on the trees while sailing into the gust. The fast run got up to only 8 seconds but while accellerating I had to gybe or otherwise would have been eating leaves. But...it paid of 76km gps/ 77,4 or 41,79knot gps 2 sec. By far the fastest topspeed with this combo. The board has got a one foot of size of 48cm!
I have been claiming this before but now I'm even more sure. A bigger board is just as fast as a smaller one up till the point where you can keep the right trimming angle. A wider tail tends to lift the board in the back resulting in front foor pressure and loss of control. THAT's the biggest facture that keeps the speed down. As long as you can keep the trimming angle right the surface friction is playing an insignificant role in the topspeed of any board.
There's another major advantage of a wider board on chop. Waves are helping to keep back foot peressure. The waves hitting around the mastfoot area keep the nose up. The wide tail prevents the board from flying. There's a subtle balance. Another major advantage is that the rig bounces a lot less compared to a less wide board that tends to sink in the water. It's just bouncing a lot more creating a windflow that is not nearly as even a on a bigger board. Of course when you're sailing at sea in high swell a big board will become too har to control, but on medium sized chop a big board can go pretty fast.
My new objective for monster will be breaking the 80km barrier with a new X series fin which is specially built for that purpose. Also my new speedboard for the canl will be based on these experiences. It will be a pretty special combo.
Dunkie came to Horst! GREAT!!!
He's a nice bloke, open to everyone on the beach and really cool. I gave him a GPS. The wind dropped by the time he arrived but luckily two rainsqualls hit. He was on a tight scedule and could only sail for 20 minutes. Dunkie did 71,9 gps max/ 71,9 gps 2 sec and 68,8 average.
I did 70,7 gps max/ 71,5 gps 2 sec and 67,8 average during the same period.
Beaten by Dunkie...but what the heck. He sailed Horst.