Now Jerry was talking smack the other day about bringing my fire retardant suit.
The youngsters were all talking about how much drive the thing had, so I had to try it.
I set out at 10.5 MPH - all of the previous pictures and the remainder of Chase were all with the boat speed set at 10.5.
When I got on the board just to cruise, I was NOT impressed. It was just like any other board, so I was a little perplexed. Then I did a quick little turn up the wake and the board LITERALLY exploded on me. I blasted from the back of the pocket forward so fast that I was almost on the swimstep.
The board is very stable and I would almost call it forgiving as a cruiser, albeit pretty small at 4'8" in length. However, start carving turns and you'll run out of wake pretty quickly.
Once I got a quick handle on it, I had the boat speed bumped up to 11.2. This was more at home for me. I could fade all the way back to the very end of the pocket and three turns later I'm slamming on the brakes.
Crazy fast. Not like with the Inland Yellow where leaning forward makes the board rip. Instead all of this boards speed seems to be stored in the fins, start carving hard turns and it springs to life.
I think this picture of James gives a very interesting perspective. Notice how far out in the flats he is and how far heeled over he is. This was created with one top turn. It's just a little tough to judge but James is almost two feet out past the side of the boat, and he wasn't TRYING to blast out there. There is no other way to describe it, this board has TONS of drive on tap.