Walzer Pintail

We had an opportunity to ride a few of the Walzer boards on Monday. Club Mike was kind enough to provde the pull, Sean Ward and Sean Walzer provided several boards for us to test.

Club Mike's boat is a '05 Nautique and so the starboard wake is the stronger of the two. In the pictures that follow, the port wake is certainly great, but is a bit steep and the pocket length is short from what we are used to. This was the first time that James had ridden behind this boat and the third time that we have ever been behind a Nautique. We prepared the exact same style boat for the first stop of the NorCal INT League wakesurfing series.

We have ridden every commercially available board, probably half of those we have demoed and reviewed by manufacturer request. With the addition of three new boards this week we own 37 unique wakesurfers and I have sold as many used ones.

I emerged from the water of Lake Elsinor after my first ride on a 1" Walzer, I believe it was the 4'3", pintail and stated: "Unequivocally, the best board I have ever ridden".

The board is exceptionally light. The folks from Walzer are keeping their core material a secret, however to give you a comparison it is approximately half the weight of a comparably sized Phase 5, Calibrated's standard pintail, Vic, etc. It is about 1/4 less the weight of Calibrated's Lovett Pro and approximately the same "less" weight as the prototype Inland Surfer 4skim that I was able to pick up at the World Wakesurfing Championship. All of this while having multiple layers of covering material (Tex' and/or Carbon).

I had mentioned in another thread that I felt hybrid designs such as the Walzer would become the mainstay of high performance wakesurfers. This design certainly substantialted my opinion, in my mind.

In this picture, you will see several design elements that make the Walzer unique. The nose rocker, the twin fins and the rails.



The nose rocker is more than you would see in most skimstyle boards. Typically too much nose rocker makes a board slow, down the line, but the Walzer addresses this issue by limiting the nose rocker to a short, abrupt curve. Similar to how Inland Surfer designs the nose rocker on their Blue Lake and Yellow, only the Walzer blends and flows more with the overall shape of the board. IMO, the outline and profile of the board were very appealing. The amount of the nose rocker and shape of the nose combined to allow effortless, smooth, flowing turns that you could extend well into the flats and up off the lip.

Shoot, that silly "work" thing is interrupting my posting. I'll be back with more.

The next feature that I was quite impressed with is the Future's C5 fin and fin box. It uses the Future's vector foil shape and the fin box allows for 1/2" adjustment fore and aft. It may not seem like much, but it does have a significant effect on the ride. The overall depth of the fin we used, was 2 3/8" although deeper fins are available.

Aerial manuevers are driven by speed. Typically speed or "drive" is associated with more fin area, either longer or deeper. This extra fin area allows the rider to push harder without lateral movement, thereby giving more forward motion. The downside to more fin area is that breaking the fins loose becomes more difficult.

As this picture captures, James was able to develop a significant amount of drive.



The Walzer has extremely hard rails the full length of the board. Also, the 1" thick board allows a fuller rail, also some sculpting of the deck into the rail. The combination of rail design, fin placement and fin location allowed seemed to be "spot on" for best drive/looseness combination. However, folks new to wakesurfing will assuredly find the board too loose in this configuration. Deeper fins would be required, along with adjusting the fins to the rear-most position.

The board uses it's rails to turn, with the pivot point being the fins. It's a little different feel than a surfboard, and traditional skimstyle boards. The feel is more like a snowboard than anything else, IMO.

the adjustable fin box is amazing..

i would have never guessed that 1/4 inch would make that big of difference...it allows the rider to tune the board (faster or slower)..

The construction of the Walzer was exceptionally light. I pressed Sean for details of the core material, even attempting to guess by elimination, to no avial. It is the lightest board commercially available. Period. This provides a significant benefit when riding as you are able to TOSS the board around effortlessly. Anyone with just moderate skills can do a chop hop and actually catch air. I am at 180 pounds and exceed the weight recommendation by a good 10 pounds or so and felt the board to be extremely agile and was able to ollie off the face of the wake.

The Walzer is available in limited shapes and sizes, but should be adequate all but the smallest or largest riders. This ability to custom order, without all the variables associated with a FULL custom board makes the Walzer and excellent choice for someone needing something different than the stock offerings that most manufacturers offer.

Me on the same board that James was airing out.

The board's bottom contour is extremely flat, this allowed the board to develop considerable speed down the line. IMO, single concaves can make a board feel more sticky for larger riders, so I felt this board to be extremely fast and loose. Hard combination to create. I tested the speed of the board by having Mike increase the speed to levels that would extremely fast for most riders. I fell out the back at 15.3, I believe was the final speed attained. It would be possible by pumping to stay with the boat at this speed, but that's about all you could do. This is a bit slower than I was able to attain on my Shred Stixx JaMako or an Inland Yellow. It is considerable faster than my Walker Project F-18.

Rail-to-Rail responsiveness is better than any of the boards I have shaped, better than any other board that I have ridden save for James' custom Team Model that Mike Walker shapes for James in contests, to our specifications. Keeping in mind that the Walzer is faster down-the-line than James' team model.

Misc tidbits. It fits in a standard rack and the overall 'fit and finish' are above average. I think the Shred Stixx and Inland Surfer products have the best fit and finish, but certainly the Walzer is no slouch.

Shortcomings. I'd prefer to see full deck traction, rather than adding an aftermarket product. James attempted to throw a shuv on the board and didn't land it...so the Jury is still out on how the board will land and ride revert with the greater nose rocker. While the folks at Walzer are ramping up production, availability is still limited.

Bottomline though, I think can best be summarized with my actions. I had purchased a board for James to ride and after the day of riding the Walzers, placed an order for my own board.

IMO, everyone with above average skills should have a Walzer in their quiver.

Thanks Jeff, I'm stoked you liked it.

The traction issue is currently being addressed. Within a month it will consist of an after market tail pad with a 3"x40" archbar that runs from the tail to the nose. On either side of it will be a 6"x24" front pad. Very little surface area will be left without traction.

By mid 07 it should be a 2 piece system - 1 large traction pad with an extra long archbar running down the center.

A few more pic's from Lake Elsinore.

These two aren't in sequence, but a shuv on the Walzer is in James' future

More misc pic's at least one, above, is of the prototype fish with a swallowtail. The rest are of the pintail model in two different sizes.

I see you got the CD.

I can't wait to see what happens after James gets a few days to dial his board in on his "home" wake.

(Message edited by CAskimmer on October 15, 2006)

I also thought the frontside 360s were pretty sick.

James mastered the shuv on the Walzer

I liked the spray on this aerial.

Sick! Looks like the board fits him well

Hey Sean, yeah...the board was a perfect fit for James. We tested the 3/4 Walzer also and both of us like the 1" better. The 3/4 seemed to be a bit more responsive edge-to-edge, but when you put any sort of power behind your edging it felt twitchy or maybe too grabby. The rails on the 1" board seemed to offer just the right amount of "bite" and would hold or lock in when pushed HARD.

I'm still working on my 3's. James can do 3's in his sleep on any board - even that huge yellow 6'2" board of Dennis' so he's not a good example.

I went to throw my first 3 and over-rotated, ended up at about 500 or so. Just for a lark I threw the next one as hard as I could and completed a 720 as I was floating out the back. It's going to take me a bit to get the rotational control working...but it spins effortlessly considering it's a twinny.

James' ollie 3 sequence.

My lovely wife, Judy. Now, Judy prefers her nice slow mellow wakesurfer. She's ridden for several years, but just started trying lipslides this year. She just like to cruise, mostly. James and I are lucky to have a mom and wife, respectively that will join us in our passions (obsessions?)

What I wanted to see is if Judy could ride the Walzer. I have been of the opinion that the Walzer was primary an upper end board. While Judy didn't instantly fall in love with the Walzer, she was able to ride it. Even dressed for battle It'll be a little loose for beginning and petite riders, but still surfable.

Did Judy and James ride on the same or different days?

Same day, although if you didn't have the date in the lower right corner you couldn't tell Judy's tolerance for cold is significantly less than James and mine.

Jeff, faster than a F18 walker! come on, thats hard to believe! Im buying one as soon as Sean calls me back (left message Visa in hand).

I noticed that she was surfing in a parka while James was wearing baggies and a short sleeved shirt

The Indiana guys are trying to get me to go out to Morse Lake on the 28th for their annual Halloween Washout. The long range forecast is calling for a high of 48. So the combined air and water temps will probably be violate the 100 degree rule – now that will be refreshing!

Hey LSG, yep, faster than my F-18. I'm loving the board. A few aerials by James today.

James landed a shuv and then the shuv back out about 4 times today. The issue with a twinny is that the fins when riding revert hang in the wake. Maintaining speed is hard and when the fin grabs it tends to change the placement...this isn't a problem with something like the phase 5 where the single fin is in the middle away from the wake and towards the nose (riding revert) where it is further out of the water. James powered through it!

that 1st air is huge

Yeah they were both pretty big...we don't have the camera equipment or skill set that you have, poor Judy is waiting for James to start his pump and then she hits the shutter These two came out pretty well. The second one with the grab - or where James is heading for the indy went a bit higher and he made the grab.

Where does one purchase a board like this?

check with sean ward (caskimmer) in this thread..