Garage Works - 8/16/2026 - Mast Repair

And since I was working with epoxy, I figured I should try and get this mast fixed for Stu (who traded it to Norm).

The goal was the fill the gap in the front side of the mast foot (so it has a tighter fit on the front side).

Mold release on my fuselage -

And tape to keep the epoxy fill off the fuselage.

Here is the mast with the epoxy hardening.

And the fill in place.

Now I just have to trim the excess off and fair the top side in - hydrodynamics!

Garage Works - 8/16/2026 - No.44

Hurricane Lala (yes that makes La and I giggle) was throwing it all at Oahu today.  I got up early this morning to the sound of wind and rain.

With all that churn, I knew the beaches would be either pretty mucked up or outright closed.  I figured it would be a great time to get work done on No.44 

It took a couple of hours, but I got the rough sanding done on the fill coats - both top and bottom.

Slow and steady always wins the race (when sanding boards).

I rinsed the board down, dried it back up and wiped the areas where the logo decals would be placed with alcohol.

Here are the bottom decals in place.

And here is the last epoxy fill coat on the bottom deck.  7.5 ounces of resin and 3.0 ounces of hardener (fast). 

And this is the top deck with its final clear fill coat - 5.5 ounces resin and 2.2 ounces hardener (fast).

In both instances I had placed extra epoxy over the decal areas to build up extra for sanding.

This is the angle where you can see the most difference from No.34 - more nose rocker (since this came from a blank from Fiberglass Hawaii), and more tail rocker.  Also I minimized the "v" in the nose - going more surfboard "flat".

If I skip out on beach time tomorrow, I may be able to finish the sanding and get the plugs installed.  That would leave plug sanding and clear coat for Tuesday, deck grip on Wednesday - and anointment on Thursday or Friday (if there is wind....)

I may actually fly out with No.34 without having done a direct back-to-back comparison between these two boards.

Edit - I figured I had an hour before I needed to go to sleep.  And If I got the plugs in today, that'll put me a day ahead and just maybe (if the wind cooperates) I'll get a session in to do a back-to-back test with No.34

Vent plug hole drilled out

Leash plug hole drilled out.

And I used 0.4 ounces of resin and 0.16 ounces of hardener to make the milled fiber slurry to set these two plugs in place.

Here's the vent plug set.

And the leash plug under epoxy.

I didn't see any air bubbles so these should be good to go.

So tomorrow is sanding and spraying the clear coat on.  Tuesday will be deck pads and drill the vent hole.  Wednesday is wait for wind.

Parawing Session - 8/14/2026

This is out there... so the surf will soon turn to shit (along with a lot of wind and rain).

When I got to the beach, Zach was breaking his windsurfing gear down, and Mark was outside winging.

The wind was up or down.

The waves were pretty big on the sets (well overhead - maybe head and a half...)

At least the tide was high and that made for less worrying about grounding.

I setup the AFS Silk 1050/152 on the 80cm UHM mast.

No.34 (maybe the last time I use it in Hawaii...)

Powered by the BRM S3 5.3

The wind was side off - and you had to go out to get away from the smashing breakers and into the wind line.

Most of the riding was done way outside in the blue water.

I managed to get two retracted PW rides - both long and well powered by overhead walls.

Way up or way down -

And I was either up and going, or down and waiting for the next gust.

Fun session - especially since I didn't get smashed!

I may try and get a surf session in at the dawn patrol... before Hurricane Lala starts negatively influencing the conditions.

PF:11/W:3/PW:93/FD:58/S:24

Evening Session - 8/13/2026

Marlon and I hit WPB this evening.  We both were optimistic with the surf and brought twin finned boards.

He was debating between the Dominator Pro and the Seaside - I was contemplating the Album Twinzer, the Revo Max, or the Hammah Fish

You can see our final choices.

The waves were at least head high where we were at (pretty much Fenceline).

Roland and Alfred were another 50' outside - the waves there were well overhead (Alfred was catching).

I saw Marlon takeoff on a few good ones.  He said they were pretty bumpy.

I had five waves - that were really fun drops on takeoff.  A couple of them had some length to them.  This board is so much fun to surf!

This guy is molting -

Good session despite the wind and chop (yes it was strong enough to have parawinged - probably with the BRM S3 4.2 - but sometimes it is good to simplify).

Tropical Storm (Hurricane) Lala is headed our way - tomorrow into Saturday morning may be the last of the clean-ish conditions before the storm passes through.  I need to work on No.44 anyways -

PF:11/W:3/PW:92/FD:58/S:24

Evening Session - 8/12/2026

The wind was up earlier - but I opted to hang out at da casa and spend time with La.  With the northerly component and the bigger swell - it didn't seem favorable for parawinging without induced drama.

I did surf -

With the bigger waves, picking out waves that wouldn't closeout and didn't already have a couple of surfers on it became the task.  And it didn't help that I went out late (which I thought would have cleared out the crowd - but it was the opposite - super crowded).

I used the Big Fish with the Rasta Vector Reverse 3/2, but took out the canards.

I wasn't able to pick off any waves yielding long rides - but the four waves I did get on I could feel how much looser the back end felt (but it wasn't slipping out on the bottom turns).

And on one wave I could sense the release I was looking for (to over-rotate the top turn) - this is promising!!!

Quick session but very insightful!

PF:11/W:3/PW:92/FD:58/S:23

Evening Session - 8/11/2026

The wind was a little up and down this afternoon - at least that is my excuse for going surfing!

The surf was pretty good!

Nice high tide.  And some wind - actually enough to parawing with a 5.0+

This is the real reason I wanted to go surfing - getting to know this board more.

I switched out the twin fins to the Futures Rasta Vector 3/2 - and they worked really well!

I still couldn't replicate the over-rotated top turn that I can do on the Boogie Fish with the Futures K2 keels, but these felt much nicer turning

I caught multiple waves (an easy thing to do on this board), and three of them were long rides with several great turns.

I think the prudent thing to do is use this board with the Rasta fins but no canards - that way I can tell what the canards are doing.

The wind is supposed to be a notch stronger tomorrow...

PF:11/W:3/PW:92/FD:58/S:22

Garage Works - 8/11/2026

La and Marlon were not home when I arrived.

So I got to work in the garage and got the fill coat on the top deck of No.44

First coat was 9 ounces resin and 3.6 ounces of hardener (fast).

Second coat was 10 ounces resin and 4 ounces of hardener (again fast).

Next up is sanding... I may just sand where the logo decals are gonna go, get those on and coat with clear epoxy.  Then save the bulk sanding for this weekend (when Hurricane "Lala" comes to town).

Parawing Session - 8/9/2026

WP crew shifted east today - Hickam!

Norm and Prayot were already out when Stu, Kalani and I pulled up.  Brian had already finished a parawing session and was going back out on wing.

The wind was nice and strong, and pretty consistent.

If your timing was good, there were some good-sized waves coming through.

AFS Enduro 1100/HA40 powered by the BRM S3 4.2

This was a really fun session - totally the opposite of the last two days.

Fastest 5 miles was 23 minutes - pretty much on foil the whole interval.

I did come off foil a few times.  Once was outside at Firsts and the wind slacked, so I was grounded for a bit.

I felt compelled to work on tacks so I got through a few of them at Firsts - felt good.

I would zoom over to Seconds depending on how the wind was blowing.  I did catch a decent sized wave over there - but Prayot caught the wave of the day.

I got one wave at Firsts where I stashed the parawing and got in some turns on just foil power.  The rest of the time the wind was blowing too hard straight offshore.

Back on the inside I got several more dry tacks in.  I tried to do the behind the back jibe and blew that hard (I'm going to have to watch more videos)

That dip was below the S3 4.2's get up threshold.

Felt good to be up on foil for the majority of the session!  It also felt good to be on the right sized parawing.

PF:11/W:3/PW:92/FD:58/S:21

And Stu paid the tab at the Lanai post session!  Mahalo Stu!

The Anointment of the J. Splee Big Fish

The anointment of the J.Splee Big Fish I custom ordered from JC Matthews occurred at this morning's dawn patrol

There was a really thick layer of clouds - which dampened the wind.

And if you were patient, there were waves (and if you were smart and sat inside, there were plenty of good waves to get onto).

Before leaving the truck, I swapped out the 0 degree canards for the 4 degree set.  I felt opening the gap  between the canard and the main fin would accentuate the twinzer feel, and serve as a good baseline before going into full fin testing mode.

This board paddles into waves easily, felt balanced, and was on the upper limit of me being able to duck dive it.  I asked for a durable glass job - and I can tell by the weight it's there.  I prefer my surfboards to have more glass than less - I feel you can build momentum and it smoothes out the ride.

I had about 10 rides in just over an hour.  And as you would think, the more waves I caught, and the more I rode the board, I was feeling the board out for how it wanted input in order to maximize energy extraction from the wave.

My last few waves were pretty darn good - lots of turns and really long.  That's mostly due to the wave been good shape and the tide supporting the breaking - but the board certainly played its part.

I really like the feel setting into a bottom turn - generates speed going through the turn.  I didn't quite figure out the top turns, especially having a mental image of what I normally get out of the Boogie Fish.  The DNA is there - but this being almost two feet more board, there is physics that needs to be worked out in order to find the "over-rotation" ability that the Boogie Fish has.  I think I'll swap out the TW1 fins for the TA High Pro twins next and see if the smaller fins open up that top turn.

The second to the last wave, I was riding in front of Dennis who was paddling out his Foil Drive setup - he had a front row seat to the turning capacity of the Big Fish.

This is going to be another great partner in the quiver!

PF:11/W:3/PW:91/FD:58/S:21

Garage Works - 8/8/2026

Big Fish from J Splee Surfboards!!!

6'8" board with the front half coming from the Aurora, and the back half from the Boogie Fish

Top deck all waxed up and a rear foot deck pad installed

I set up the fins with the True Ames Canard at 0 degrees and the Futures OG TW1

I'll take this out on the dawn patrol (I need to break up the foiling run - maybe that'll get the skunk off of me)

I'll bring the True Ames 4 degree Canards out with me to see if those work better than the 0 degree.

Can't wait!!! 

Parawing-Prone Foiling Session - 8/7/2026

This was yesterday's session -

There were some whitecaps on the outside - which usually means an easterly flow.

Tide was decently high.

Norm was there and had his parawings - so we decided to do a downwind run.

I had the AFS Enduro 1300/HA43 and the BRM S3 5.3

It was another "evaporate as you go" day - with the wind disappearing.

I did get up on foil twice - early in the session so this counts on the parawing ticker.  But while jibing, there wasn't enough wind to make it through the turns.

I went down after the Cabins and stayed down.

Here's the wind from Hickam - we had it worse out West.

I figured I'd cut my losses and paddle in at Campgrounds.

I did catch a series of waves prone foiling so that's a notable.

And to add to this, I hit Kailua this morning thinking the wind would fill in there first.  I totally got skunked...

0 for 2 - unsettled atmosphere days....

PF:11/W:3/PW:91/FD:58/S:20