Actually Damo tried to use his own constructed board at the worlds this year, but... once again we found that Damo is a great rider and a hell of a nice guy, but NOT A BOARD BUILDER!!! Damo are we clear?
Damo's stuff exploded before he ever got a chance to race it this year and he ended up racing on a new board build by Ian Ponting of Cabrinha. The board worked well enough for him to win a race, but he needed more time to dial in fins. As it turns out, fins are equally important as boards are.
I can confirm that race boards are far better than any other type of board in light winds. a good rider weighing up to 185, using a good race board and a 13 meter bow with extended lines will rip upwind and down in winds ranging between 9 mph and 11 mph.
basically a race board will allow florida riders to get on the water nearly every day including summer afternoons.
obviously there is no freestyle or huge airs on these boards, but learning fast tacks, jibes, etc. is still challenging. these boards actually fly and will even best twin tips on basically any reaching leg as well.
Nope, i'm only using my small DC on the down wind event and my larger one is basically retired. 3 years ago when i brought it out to nationals it was clearly the best board on the water. had a better rider used it, it would have placed on top. Derek is normally way ahead of the pack with ideas and concepts. Actually he has had a killer board build for nearly 7 months already and it seems as though this board will probably be on par or better than most boards at the worlds were. i'm sure we will see more good boards from Derek soon.
i agree with Chris with his board recs. if you want to get a board that has been tested, Mike Z. or NJS are your best choices for now. They will cost you, but you know what you get. Lots of race boards will be hitting the market soon, but unless they have been tested racing and the right fins are used, most will be nothing more than great light wind boards. This is probably fine too.
in any case it's something you should have in your quiver of sticks.
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