Been a Long Time Since I Mowed Foam

The kids were sailing in a regatta today and they were going to a marching band event afterwards.  I helped tow their boats over to Kaneohe then came back home to work on some stuff.  First thing I did was get the shimming of the hydrofoil on the light wind kiteboard done (I think the misalignment was one reason for the difficulty I was having on the foil - lift was generated unless the angle of attack was positive; the alignment had it negative from the get go).  After that I put the carpet strips on the shaping racks.  Then I dug out the long vacuum hose I use with the Hitachi planer.  That set the next 3 hours in motion.  I set to mowing all the excess foam off of the foilboard blanks.  I emptied the vacuum three times and it filled one of the trash bags that we use in the house.  Here are pictures of the 5'6" after the mowing job.

You can see the garbage bag full of grinded off foam just below the nose of the board.

And here is the rocker profile for both the 5'6" (top) and 5'2" (bottom).

These went pretty fast since there really isn't much shaping to these.  Mostly flat rocker throughout (with some nose rocker to make paddling easier).  Super thick everywhere and sharp squared off rails for paddling power.  Of course this is just the rough shaping.  I'll have to fair in the rails, smooth out the top and bottom decks, sand everything down and then install the reinforcement blocks for the mast tracks (used to mount the foil).

I might be able to get the fairing and sanding done tomorrow.  I might also be able to get the voids cut out for the reinforcement blocks.

These are important to finish as the flat tail rocker is key to mounting the foil (without shims) and the extra thickness should make catching waves easier.  If I keep pecking away at them, I think I could be glassing them by next weekend, and riding them by the following weekend.  That's the plan anyways.

Also - there is a late season SSW swell hitting.  Marlon and I got on it yesterday afternoon and it was about shoulder high.  I paddled out late this afternoon (to rinse off the garage sweat and foam mowing grunge) and I took off on a few overhead waves.  I love living here!