New board from bali

[benjl]

I've just come back from Bali and had such a blast! What an amazing and awesome place, I can't wait to go back and actually plan a specific surf holiday there!
I had probably the best two waves of my life on a rented 7'6 NSP board that was all beaten up but still soo much fun.

While I was over there I came across a little surf board shop in Kuta that offered me a full deal of a board, bag, fins, leash and tail pad for only $400 NZD so I couldn't resist A shop called 'Mango Surfboards'?

They had many to choose from and the decision was a very tough one (considering I couldn't try each one before buying) but I ended up settling on this 6'2 as attached. I've been after a bit of a '1 board quiver' for some time and just couldn't find the right balance of paddle-ability and performance but I think this one finally comes close. Ideally i'd like ths board to have quad plugs and a thumb tail but I was running out of time and this seemed to be the pick of the bunch for me.

It's 6'2 x 20 x 2 1/2 although it has a domed deck so still retains quite a lot of volume under the chest with a slightly wider style of outline.
It's EPOXY so is still quite light but has a carbon patch on the bottom side of the board and also has very strong glassing (which I wanted)- it is 6+6 on the top and 10oz on the bottom. The glassing also has a distinctive kevlar/woven look about it which is pretty cool.

The rocker is a bit flatter than my normal boards but still has a flat/single concave entry but later moving in to a double concave with what looks like a slight V or flat exit at the tail.
The guy at the shop said that due to the volume and design it should handle small mush to double overhead and hollow/glassy waves?

I only got to try it out on Kuta beach in 1-3ft waves with a mixture of fat wide waves and a few steeper lippy waves but it went well. Paddled really well and can't wait to try back in NZ waters this weekend!

[benjl]

What do you guys reckon the volume would be? I think it looks quite similar to the firewire hellfire board aside from the tail design

[jaffa1949]

benjl , you didnt ask when you bought it.
You bought it, just surf it, just judge it on how it goes for you.
Anything other than how it goes is purely academic!
Volume I don't know.
Try using the firewire calculator if you think the are similar.

[benjl]

haha I tried! It was quite hard to get definitive information as the shop salesman was indoneisan and he kept talking about wave heights in M's instead of feet and i guess because he wasn't the shaper he didn't know all the minute details of the board such as specific volume. He seemed very knowledgable on surfing in general though (their blanks, rockers, glassing, boards for different types of waves etc) and said that out of the other boards I was looking at and for a 'one board quiver' it would cover about 1-7ft.
I sold my Anderson and Barron before the trip so now i'm just down to two boards

I tried surfing it in the weekend and it seems pretty good- stable, easy to paddle, even caught and rode small white wash which I couldn't do on my Anderson. Still haven't had any waves bigger than 4ft on it so can't comment on what it's like in bigger stuff.
so far though I think it might be 'the one'..haha I just can't believe I picked up the whole package for $400!

[drowningbitbybit]

Sweet

My 'usual' board has very similar dimensions, except that it has a swallow tail and is a little thinner around the rails. It handles small stuff pretty well - needs to be worked, but, hey, all shortboards do in the small stuff. On bigger stuff, it works nicely, although not like a potatochip shortboard or a dedicated big wave board.
I really like the board, so yours should be great too!

Volume? God knows...

[benjl]

Thanks DBB, i'm pretty excited to use it more and see how it goes! Luckily my last shortboard came with some bigger FCS Mayhem FCB fins which I kept when I sold it so i'll probably stick those on for bigger days.

Look forward to reporting on how it is in bigger and cleaner waves soon!

The only downside was Virgan Aus managing to dent / crack one of the rails despite wrapping the board in 5kg of clothes from my suitcase and a double padded travel bag!

[surfyeah]

Looks sweet. Even the Bali room looks sweet, can't wait to get back there:)
I kind of doubt that it can "handle small mush to double overhead and hollow/glassy waves" equally well but I guess no board can do that:)