Gorge Swap Meet Board List: Part II

[isobars]

Your size, displacement, and stripe recall is amazing, but you're off by a year according to WSMag. Your numbers and description concur with their 2001 fleet, the year they switched from flames to lightning bolts. Even within the flame era, the red-flamed 8-5 was 86L in 2000, 78 in 1999 according to WSMag ...

But I'm beginning to suspect WSMag's numbers. There are several discrepancies and one fundamental question: How is length measured ... straight line nose to tail or along the keel? Mine is 8-4 the short way, 8-5 along the keel. It says 8'-5" on the deck, but its measured 55.5 cm width corresponds to what WSMag quotes for the 1999 8-5 but says is 250.2 cm long ... i.e., 8-4. The list of discrepancies in the mag goes on ...

Sheeeeyittt ... It's about mid-length and mid-displacement as old-style Gorge and wave boards go. As best as I can reconcile the discrepancies, it is 86L, making you right and the 1999 WSMag data wrong. I will correct my swap meet poster accordingly.

Thanks for catching that, as a 10% volume error is significant, especially in that size range.

Mike \m/

[dllee]

I'm just hoping and guessing.
I switched board shops, and didn't stay in the know on year 2000/01, for a lot of boards.
That 8'5" Naish looks huge enough next to my JP251Wave and the Drops next to it.

[isobars]

My JP251Wave just happened to be sitting on the den floor next to my 8-5 Naish. I had to get out a yardstick to tell the difference ... 3-4 cm in length and a half inch in max width -- roughly what I'd expect between an 8-3 and an 8-5. Grabbed a nearby Maui Project Wave 8-5, and it measured almost identically to the Naish 8-5. Both of those boards are at their respective performance curve cusps, right at the junction of small board handling and big board (by Gorge standards) flotation. At 190# either could be my one-board quiver; now that I'm at 170, I'd drop to the 8-4. Fortunately, I don't have to choose either size or marque; it would be a tough choice among all the boards I've ever ridden. Whether my 2014 Naish wave retro is better awaits head to head testing. At 20 times the price, it had better be.

[ciobst]

Post in classifieds like everybody else. Just because you have a trailer full of aged gear doesn't give you special standing

[isobars]

[windoggi]

When I was a kid, our neighbors had a dog named Princess. If you got her riled up, she would pee all over the place. We called her Pissin' Princess.

[isobars]

Eight of my boards found new homes where they will get to play much more often than they did at my house. Seven buyers (one bought two boards) have whistle clean, solid, some nearly new high-performance boards for prices ranging from $40 (a high-wind niche board) to $250 (2006 JP FSW flawless but for a few cosmetic decal nicks). A virtually unused, mint Naish Wave 8-5 went for $95.

Peter generously let me run his moisture meter over any boards I wanted to. I checked the boards with any sign of damage, and was surprised at some findings. For example, the board I was most concerned about was a 20-year-old epoxy Bonzer with replaced deck box. It registered virtually zero moisture (under 3% ... better than new boards) all around the repair, yet had one unexplained moisture hit lost in a remote undamaged expanse of deck.

My thanks to a group of buyers who paid pretty close to my asking prices and still got GREAT deals. Everybody won, and I suspect there will be eight big grins on the river later this week.

I wasn't kidding when I said that a person could fly or drive to the better Gorge swap meets just to buy gear here, come out ahead compared to paying hinterland prices, and get in some sailing to boot. I didn't buy five boards at ONE swap meet because they were cheap: I bought them because my research had put them very high on my wish list and they all just appeared at once.

I bought only one board yesterday. New Naish bag, the only style of footstraps I will use, Chinook two-bolt deck plate, new-looking Chinook uni to match, big OEM deck pads, nice True Ames onshore wave fin of just the right size, and an undamaged (30 minutes of cleaning and it will look nearly new) cold-dead-hands Swiss-made AHD Power Wave 257 that planes through most lulls, hauls ass, rides like silk, and slams TIGHT u-turns at full speed in chop like a knife in warm butter with just toe pressure in the back strap and a dip 'o the mast. How do I know awreddy? 'Cause I already own one and their 252 baby sister.

$60. For everything. And I needed the board bag.

I LOVE it when WSers switch to kiting or succumb to advertising pressure and dump their used gear. My next step is to test the best of the best of my keepers head to head with my 2014 gear. I sure hope the new stuff comes out ahead, 'cause it cost more than my 27 older boards did all combined.