I recently got to try a friends new Armstrong mid length Board 5’5” at 55L.
While mid length paddle power was nice. what caught be by surprise was the connection I had to my foil. I had such a quicker response from feet to Foil. Which really changed the way I was able to manoeuvre. I was blown away, it felt like the change from a flexible mast to a new stiff high mod mast. I can only assume it’s the boards construction with carbon fibre tracks and stringers.
Has anyone else felt similar thing?
Are there any other board builders DYI or local shapers that are using carbon tracks and or stringers?
To the contrary, I think this goes beyond just the track material. The Armstrong boards have a nice construction in my experience.
I recently got a quiver of Appletree boards delivered. I’ve only done one sup downwinder on the 100L Appletree board but have a bunch of time on the gen 1 Armstrong 107L sup and the 108L downwind performance SUP.
I was very surprised by how much more solid / connected the Appletree board felt then either Armstrong (I think this is due to the higher density foam). I’d argue that DW boards are where you would feel the biggest differences - because they have the most foam between you and the foil.
Full disclosure I am an Appletree ambassador and received the boards at a discount (but still payed for them). I plan to keep the 8’11" DW performance board for using small foils on really big days.
This comes up a few times, I think the oversight is comparing an old board to a new one. Newer gear almost always feels better. New gear has always felt stiff and connected, across all the brands mentioned.
Highly doubt this owning boards from both brands, for anything other than old vs new
This is a good point and certainly something to factor in.
On this occasion tested 2 brand new prone boards in the one week. exactly the same foil setup.
Board 1 was was a lot thinner. from another large brand, carbon construction.
Board 2 was the Armstrong mid length. Despite the added thickness, for me, there was a BIG difference in feel on foil.
Ok yes different thickness will feel different, that wasn’t what I understood you to be comparing in your comment:
You implied that your brand new Appletree DW felt much stiffer than what I guess are 2 season Armstrong DW, which I think is a common mistake to put that difference down anything other than strained fibres and sagging resin, and not the density of the foam. Blind test back to back two new boards for a viable comparison. Old boards are going to be tired.
I’m just posing this as a viable explanation where across foils wings boards, newer consistently feels better than older, but not considered as the reason
Nope you had it right the first time. The Armstrong DWP is less than 1/2 a season old. Boards might get “tired” but I can certainly feel a difference in the foam density. I was surprised by this the first time I paddled up the Appletree on flat water - pumping it felt very different to what I am used to.
In fact if you tap on the boards they have drastically different resonant frequencies for the same reason (I assume).
Interesting I had missed that it was a DWP I thought you meant the older board.
Do you think you can you demonstrate a difference? Seems like it would be possible to strap a board down, bolt a mast on and measure the deflection. Never seen that done for a board, have seen it a lot for a foil. Might be a viable test.
I’m doubtful (of the claim, partly due to the ambassador thing), but very curious. Would be cool to see the results. What you’re saying is that the combo of foam/carbon/resin on the DWP is flexing more than the Appletree, as the softer foam doesn’t support the carbon as well.
I own both brands, but not both are DW boards, so can’t check for myself, the DWP seems very rigid, but I have had issues with the 1201+NLv2 combo, and I’d be interested in tracking that down to the board rather than the mast or foil. Also @Kanye_East claims the Armstrong tracks felt stronger than their prior board, seems so you’re contradicting that claim in some sense.
Not conflicting the claim that Armstrong tracks are stiff. I think the Armstrong construction is fantastic.
I’m not necessarily saying the DWP is less stiff - in fact I did not use the word “stiff” in my original post. Perhaps the “solid” feeling I describe is the dampening characteristics of the foam. There is a very noticeable difference to the feeling when pumping the boards, probably similar to the difference between Poly and EPS surfboards.
The intention of my original post was to highlight that there are a lot of factors which go into the “feel” of a board beyond the material used in the tracks.
Understand. I’ll try get a test on an Appletree DW board. I tried the original one but that was on old foils when masts weren’t stiff enough to appreciate something like this. The Appleskipper was not noticeable beyond new = firm for me. I know what you mean I think, rigid firm solid dense immovable etc, generally what we are all chasing.
