Sanding to aid release

Anyone up to sanding the bottom of their board?

It's been maybe two years ago, CASkimmer spoke of applying a speed finish to the bottom of contest boards.

The other day while riding I noticed that a board with a glossy smooth fnish seemed to really stick to the surface.

As I floated, I lifted the nose of the board out of the water and the surface of the water literally seemed to be glued to the board.

I'm going to try and experiment to see if this aids release. I don't believe it will aid speed down the line, but I think breaking up some of the "sticktion" will help release.

I taped off around the fin boxes because I DO want water attachment in that area, then I sanded using 60 grit running lengthwise on the board.

I'll be interested to see how the next test ride goes.....

I was wondering this same exact thing. My Black Widow is a complete gloss finish, no sanding at all. But I had to sand the rails a bit. even the feel between the bottom and the rails by hand made me wonder which is preferred for riding...

Can't wait to hear the outcome.

maui skimmers offers a dimple bottom,when getting wrapped,he swears by its release speed..at the 02 world stand up jet ski finals havasu,i saw the factory boyz dragging brand new super jets down the side walk to scuff the bottoms.about thirty minutes later,i was dragging mine down the road too..couldnt really tell a difference except for the scratches,but at least i finally had a factory mod done to my boat.as for a board,my crappy finish werk has allowed me to ride a ton of boards with unfinished bottoms.lol.my guess is they were slower than polished ones..i would go with a 3 to 9mm deep single concave to double concave out at the y, forced V bottom if i were searching for speed

Shark skin is like sand paper - and there is millions of years of evolution. Maybe you shoud inspire at athletes swimsuits like Speedo where they research how to reduce drag

We weren't serachhing for speed, only relase. The speed may have changed, but if it did it was so negligible that no one could tell. So the sanding had no positive or adverse effect on speed down-the-line.

It did have a noticable effect on release. I refrain from calling it significant, but it was enough that you could feel it. I would think for aerial boards, a direction sanding would be benefical.