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