5'6 FST Spitfire Review
Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2012 4:54 pmJust picked up my 5`6 FST Spitfire yesterday, thing looks amazing, loving how wide the nose and tail are and just the overall outline and rocker profile of it.
Haven’t had a chance to ride it, it is November on the East Coast. However, I will be heading out to San Diego at the start of the year. I thought about waiting till I made it to Cali before picking up my board, but then I found a sweet deal online.
Anyways, without having ridden the board all I can do is review the technical aspects of the board. So, let’s start there. Originally I was torn between the SP or the Spitefire. In the end I’m satisfied with my decision. I had been told that the two boards would overlap to much in their wave range and performance characteristics but judging by how much wider the nose of the Spitfire is along with the decreased rocker the Spitfire has compared to the Hellfire I can just tell that It will glide through flat sections a lot easier than the HF. The board also has a wider tail than my 5`8 Hellfire so the waves will give me a little more push and Hopefully I can get into smaller/weaker surf with less effort.
The concave is a drastic change compared to the Hellfire, which has a massive double going from right under your chest all the way back to the tail allowing for easy rail to rail transitions and gives it that amazing feel in good waves, where as the Spirfire has a shallow single concave that runs throughout the whole board which will help to generate lift and allow for more contact with the actual waves which in turn gives you better planning over mushy sections of the waves.
And the last difference I noticed was the fin placement in comparison to the Hellfire, the back quad boxes are a little more towards the middle of the board and more detached from the rail, the Hellfire has the trailing quad boxes directly on the rail which works great but after hearing what kelly had to say about quads in the teahupoo contest im excited to try something a little more like what he described.
Damn, I’m excited just writing my review. Only two months away before I give my full review. I pulled the trigger a bit early because I found a pretty sweet deal. So, I’ll end my technical review with that. This site gave me 10% off plus 5% cash back. If you find a board I’d love to read your review.
(irrelavent url removed KS)
Haven’t had a chance to ride it, it is November on the East Coast. However, I will be heading out to San Diego at the start of the year. I thought about waiting till I made it to Cali before picking up my board, but then I found a sweet deal online.
Anyways, without having ridden the board all I can do is review the technical aspects of the board. So, let’s start there. Originally I was torn between the SP or the Spitefire. In the end I’m satisfied with my decision. I had been told that the two boards would overlap to much in their wave range and performance characteristics but judging by how much wider the nose of the Spitfire is along with the decreased rocker the Spitfire has compared to the Hellfire I can just tell that It will glide through flat sections a lot easier than the HF. The board also has a wider tail than my 5`8 Hellfire so the waves will give me a little more push and Hopefully I can get into smaller/weaker surf with less effort.
The concave is a drastic change compared to the Hellfire, which has a massive double going from right under your chest all the way back to the tail allowing for easy rail to rail transitions and gives it that amazing feel in good waves, where as the Spirfire has a shallow single concave that runs throughout the whole board which will help to generate lift and allow for more contact with the actual waves which in turn gives you better planning over mushy sections of the waves.
And the last difference I noticed was the fin placement in comparison to the Hellfire, the back quad boxes are a little more towards the middle of the board and more detached from the rail, the Hellfire has the trailing quad boxes directly on the rail which works great but after hearing what kelly had to say about quads in the teahupoo contest im excited to try something a little more like what he described.
Damn, I’m excited just writing my review. Only two months away before I give my full review. I pulled the trigger a bit early because I found a pretty sweet deal. So, I’ll end my technical review with that. This site gave me 10% off plus 5% cash back. If you find a board I’d love to read your review.
(irrelavent url removed KS)
