Maui Windsurfing Blog 2005 Board Test, Light Trades

Light trades returned to Maui today - finally. It's been a pretty poor March for wind. Today was only my 4th day of sailing in March and the sailing was pretty marginal today. It's a pretty bad sign when I get excited about seeing a reading of 15 on the wind sensor and head to the beach based on that. It looked pretty marginal, but I wanted to try out the board I'm demoing - a 90 liter Quatro Fish. Went out on it with a 5.8 and slogged and slogged and slogged. It felt like it was windy enough that I could have been planing on my regular board (in the shop for repairs) but I just couldn't get this damn board to plane off without bearing way the hell off wind. Tried that a couple of times and ended up at Lowers and spent the better part of a half hour each time slogging back upwind. My conclusion: this board is not for me. I want something that I can plane on in these conditions - the sensor was reporting an average of 20 when I was out. That should have been plenty enough to plane (though I think that reading was a tad high). I did plane a few times, but not much. On the positive side for this board, it feels very loose, I think it would be sweet on a wave, but I want to be able to get to the waves and be powered up in them - I hate slogging through the break. So, I'll try it again tomorrow, but so far the RRD Freestyle Wave 90 was much better for these conditions in my humble opinion.