Surfladle

Hi Danny

I did get chance to use the Shox on Tuesday but only briefly. The
cambered sail I rigged requires heaps of downhaul (which I often
struggle to pull on manually) but the XTR lever system on the SDM Shox
made really light work of it. I was very pleasantly surprised at how
easy it rigged the sail and this will prove a real bonus for on-the-
water adjustments (which is often required)....let's face it, going back
to the beach to crank on the downhaul (possibly involving a trip to the
car for an easy rig) is a real pain! I have young kids so only get short
snippets of time on the water so this sort of system makes things very
efficient!

I only had a few runs with the Shox because it was pretty wild out on
the water and I changed down pretty quickly to smaller wave gear (and an
RDM set up). However, I could sense that the Shox made the rig feel
really different. The rig seemed much more stable and floaty. Quite
nice. Unfortunately I was really overpowered and sailing with an
immensely fast guy so I couldn't tell if the system provided an increase
in speed but I'm sure that power stays "on" more as a result of less
distortion of the rig riding over harsh chop. It felt nice but I need to
check it out more. I'll report more later.


Cheers, Neill

p.s. I didn't manage to get out yesterday but we probably had the
windiest day of 2010...a real good storm. We've had a good run of wind
recently....and more forecast for Saturday :)

Looks like New Zealand is getting our share of the wind as well!!
Danny.

Reviewed by Neill Herbert. Auckland, New Zealand.