Surfing Waves

So recently a couple of boards came up for sale used that I couldn’t pass on. One was the Walden mega magic 8’ I put up in another thread @ a whopping 84L, ready for the small swell wet season, and I added one more today, handmade Hawaiian board that is aimed at so called higher performance....looks like a gun with a round nose. Haven’t surfed it yet but looking forward to some swell so I can. Here’s some pics of both and a side by side.....similar in length but quite different as well.

There is a guy near me who surfs a Walden mega. It seems like cheating, he catches everything early and no matter how small and has so much time to pop up. Of course he is a much better surfer than me anyway, but it helps me to blame his board

Dtc, those are actually known for being super easy wave catchers, it IS the board lol!

Tom

So one for fun, small and fat, one for the reefs on bigger days. The 8'6" has a big stringer too; not as big as the Kimo Greene board but inspires confidence still. 8'6" has a lot of tail rocker and is quite foiled/thin through the tail as well as being really pulled in which will be great for larger waves that pack a punch, not so great for average days which is where the fatty magic steps in...........problem solved, just get two boards!

tomthetreeman wrote:Dtc, those are actually known for being super easy wave catchers, it IS the board lol!

Tom

He's not kidding....even using the 8' size I set up 10m outside the longboards in the lineup and can get the waves. Unreal how good of a wave catcher it is. Would say it is better than the 10'4" I have because it can accelerate faster and I can swing the nose faster (swing weight) meaning easier to "dive" down into a wave. In any case, the mega is definitely cheating.

I am puzzled about the 84l. It is slightly thinner than the standard Mega Magic 8.0, but has 10l more volume?

Oldie wrote:I am puzzled about the 84l. It is slightly thinner than the standard Mega Magic 8.0, but has 10l more volume?

Remember that measurements are at the widest or thickest. So if you have a board that is 2 3/4 inches thick but carries that thickness right out to the rails and nose etc, it may well have more volume than a 3 inch board that has more refined rails or a narrower nose etc

Although the website says ‘Volume is taken from the length and redistributed to the width and thickness which provides excellent float and stability while still maintaining the famous Magic Model performance. The Mega is about 1/2-1″ thicker and 1-2″ wider than a standard Magic Model.‘

Honestly Oldie I don't know. Website and board lists the same dimensions; not sure historically how they stack up. I will say the board is wide, and that step in the deck is fairly pronounced. That said, it surfs better than fat piggy grovellers with thick foam distribution all the way out to the rails. It doesn't float like my 10' board of similar volume....that board is like sitting on an SUP or windsurfer.....the deck definitely feels like a deck and at 24" wide is noticeably more stable at rest......in short (or long) it floats like a boat. The mega is more unstable (sensitive....can be a good thing) and feels like it paddles slower than my 9'2" board. But when it comes to catching waves, I can't tell you why but it's easier for sure. Maybe because of the wide tail, maybe some other design feature, maybe the float helps to catch but the width and lack of length takes the feeling of glide aways when paddling. I can't really say. I like the board in the waves I've tried it in is about all I can.

Big H wrote:He's not kidding....even using the 8' size I set up 10m outside the longboards in the lineup and can get the waves. Unreal how good of a wave catcher it is. Would say it is better than the 10'4" I have because it can accelerate faster and I can swing the nose faster (swing weight) meaning easier to "dive" down into a wave. In any case, the mega is definitely cheating.

Sounds like it would be a great first surfboard that would probably find a permanent place in the quiver.

A contrast of longboard tail widths and shapes. 10’4” noserider and 8’6” performance board.

Big H, how do you like your Mega Magic so far? I ask as we will travel more by plan the next years, and lugging the longboard around has not been much fun. I came across this board in the pretty sturdy X2 finish in 8.0, so it sounds like a good travel compagon. But I wonder wether it is too corky with 84l in just 8 ft, and wether it would work at all in more powerful waves, or would bounce too much?