Windsurf Board Repair

Repairing a Sandwich board with a Plywood Sandwich:

Although I'm not a professional at board repair, I did come up with a pretty solid repair to the deck of my board recently. In this case the board developed a soft spot from my toes at the front straps from freestyle sailing.

Upon investigation I found that the foam had compressed enough to pull away from the fiberglass. I cut back the fiberglass sandwich until I got back to the region with good bond and no delamination. From here I feathered back the sandwich to have a good bonding area. I also cut out a matching piece of 1/8in plywood to take the place of the old deck. It's amazing how easy it is to cut the 1/8in plywood with heavy duty sciccors.

From here I used a spray foam to bring the surface up flush with the rest of the deck. After setting, I sanded the foam down to be inset just the thickness of the new 1/8in plywood plug.

After sanding the new foam back I then layed the first layer of fiberglass into the repair and allowed it to come up the sides of the repair and onto the existing deck of the board.

I then placed the plywood into the repair and weighted it to take the rounded shape of the deck.

After this was set, the final step was to glass over the plywood and the entire repair to finish off the sandwich patch.

Davenport - May 23, 2010

Although winter and spring seem to keep coming and coming here in California, there have definitely been a few perks with some great clearing winds and swell. Today was one of those days sailing at Davenport with a combined NW and South swell to make for some great wave riding conditions.

My buddies Ryan and Liam came out to partake in the festivities along with every other sailor from the Coast and Bay. Today was the most sailors that I can recall seeing on the water at Davenport at one time. At one point on the north break there were 3 others on one of the larger set waves with me, enough that I got stuck on the inside and couldn't clear the whitewash.

Ryan brought out his new GoPro helmet-cam to try and capture the experience. This new camera from "GoPro" can mount just about anywhere and takes HD video using a super wide angle lens. The wide angle definitely aids in getting usable footable from a helmet or rig mounted location as the large view helps keep the vibrations and jarring to a minimum when viewing. We had tried a similar camera a couple years ago but the wide angle and HD video make for a much much better result. Here's a sample. (right now it's been compressed and watermarked to get it uploaded so the quality is significantly reduced)

Davenport Landing - May 2, 2010

Spring has arrived!! Saturday April 24th yielded outstanding surf with a nice SW swell running and solid 4.5 to 5.0 conditions but May 1 and 2 were off the charts windy with blistering 4.0 conditions Satuday and 4.5 sailing on Sunday. The upper reef break at Davenport was the spot today with consistent shoulder high sets from the NW wrapping all the way into the beach with a little punch for that last kick off the lip.

The 2010 Superfreak was an outstanding performer in the varied conditions that ranged from extremely overpowered on the outside and down-the-line to underpowered heading out from the upper break. The range of this sail is impossible to beat.




















Bay Area sailors, Edward, Marty and Jeff made the trip down from SF to score some great sailing, disco ball and all!

When you're too wiped from your first day of the season, you're always welcome to get cozy on the beach and take it all in like Kevin and Alisha. Oh, and the beer is good too!