B6 - Mini Me

B6 - Mini Me (Built)

Small stiffer version of B5 - Light Wind Board. 130 x 40 cm, 30mm rocker, 5 mm concave, 8mm paulownia wood core made in 2 layers. Designed with freestyle in mind and for bigger wind days in the surf.

Layup as per B5 with the addition of precured topsheet and 200gm pre-cured layer of resin on bottom. 8mm core. Rocker line same as B5.
Download plans for B6 - Mini Glide

Comments: Board has only just been out on the water one time. Too little rocker in it as a result of using rocker jigs for B5 - Light wind boards. 8mm wood core with same layup as light wind board with the exception of using precured skin on top and gelcoat bottom surface. Twice as stiff as the light wind board. In initial runs, the board threw up a lot of spray off the fins. Suggest moving fins in towards center at least 30mm. Suspect this is better on flat water. Pop was excellent, easy to jam rails into the water to load up. I think that this board needs more taper at the corners and mezzanine section to be a comfortable ride in the surf. Corners turned out squarer than on light wind board due to the way BoardOff Scales the design and me not reducing the tip width sufficiently.

Update : I remade this board outline with a different core. The core is the 6mm constant thickness core that I used in the light wind board. The experience of riding it was very different. The thinner core makes it much more comfortable ride. The board still absolutely trucks up wind and similarly still throws up spray off the corners.

No carbon on in the core either. 450 gm stitched eglass+graphics+180gm plain weave eglass and post cured it at 50 degrees. 

This is a better boards than the very stiff core version but the spray off the corners limits the range of chop that it can be ridden in. I had it out in the surface and the wind chop at around the 20 knots made it nearly impossible to ride as the spray continually distracts. As it dropped of to 15 knots the spray all but vanished.

I watched the corners when the spray came up and it it occured when edging and typically only about 2 -3cm of the corner would slice through the water and kick up the spray. i think that is all that would be required to rid the board of the spray problem. 

On flat water it was excellent. Rails really locked in and made it really easy to load it and almost pull the kite to a holt. Needs a few more days testing to really feel it out.