Breakin in my Dekka PDF Print E-mail
Written by waveyak   
Monday, 03 November 2008 07:30
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It took me a while but now I really like my Dekka and I am riding it well. Until..... I headed off to Gisborne for a cold, clear, frosty Queen's Birthday weekend. The surf was clean and big. Day 2 and I dragged the family down to the beach at Centres. Brett turned up to slash and burn and I tried to match him. Sliding back into a potential barrel I got slammed. Bang, nothing holding me to the board. Stayed with it and looked down in horror at the gaping hole where my quad centre anchor had been. Nice clean soggy polystyrene looked back. I limped back to shore and grabbed my surfboard as the surf was too good to miss. Brett thought it was Christmas and dropped in blatantly and regularly. Even his daughter got in on it, carefully cutting me out of the video footage by focussing on Brett as he cut me off yet again. Bl#@! goatboaters... Got the board drying and sent an SOS to Nick at Tsunami. I gasped at the potential repair bill if he fixed it, so he gave me some great advice and sold me some bits. Should have payed him to fix it! Trying to dry a board and work with resin in mid-Winter is a muggs game. Spent a lot on electricity for the heater that ran all night.

Process - Get a router - cut out a nice square in the polystyrene to clean up the hole. Cut a nice square of polystyrene to match the hole. Glue in with resin. When dry smooth off flush with deck. Router smaller square in centre of deck, cut sqare of high density polyester foam to fit. Glue in with resin. Smooth flush with deck. Router out hole in centre suitable for screwbox and insert screwbox with glass cloth around it and resin. Smooth off flush to deck. Put nails in holes to stop resin entering. Glass 6-8 layers. Smooth with resin filler, sand, smooth, sand, you get the message. Paint. Sounds a lot easier and shorter than it was. Took ages with working in the evenings and the long dry times.

After getting much better on the surfboard, I finally got the ski back in the water about 3 weeks ago. Just in time for the big storms. South winds and massive swells were amazing to watch and hard yakka to paddle out in, but I scored some great rides and some good cudos amongst the surfers. Faces were about 8 ft (bigger earlier in the day) and no photos of anyone out for scale as it was still cold and windy and only three of us braved the paddle (waveski and two boards).

Check out the photos (Brett heading into Gissy perfection - Queens Birthday, Repairs and the Big Swell of three weeks back)...

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damage.jpg
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Gissyskibreaker.jpg
Gissyskibreaker.jpg
smoothin.jpg
smoothin.jpg
repaired.jpg
repaired.jpg
Big swell.jpg
Big swell.jpg
Last Updated on Thursday, 09 April 2009 11:30
 

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