matth wrote:Do you think its the same exact shape, rocker, v bottom , double concave etc?.
Yeah, as others have said it seems to be the same shape, but not as strong of a construction. I've had mine for about 9 months. Probably about 40 sessions and no problems with the wakesurfer construction. I ride it a combination of flat water and waves. I had been working on doing some strapless airs of 3 or 4 feet off of waves and had a couple of really hard landings on it, but there doesn't seem to be any damage. The full deckpad really helps with the hard landings. I'm 165 lbs.
The only weird thing is I keep getting little cracks on the nose of the board. Never banged the nose that I can remember, but the little cracks keep appearing. Might have been a manufacturing defect. Not enough resin got up there? I just put some of that surfboard repair resin over it and it has been fine, so I'm not too worried about it.
This thing is just as much fun in flat water as it is in the waves. It's sensitive to weight placement, but when you get it right it just flies in lightwind and flat water. Goes upwind like crazy. Similar to a raceboard, you have to keep it flat and ride the fins.
I've ridden it a few miles upwind in the sound in the outer banks. Riding fast upwind is fun, but without straps you can't ride it downwind very fast. If there are waves though it works great. Ride upwind fast and then ride the waves on your way back down the beach.
This board is by far the easiest board to tack and jibe (with switching your feet) that I have ridden because it is so wide and stable. You can walk all over it.
I like it with 4 fins. I tried it with two and thought it was too loose. Turns a lot sharper with 2 fins, but the nose hunts around and doesn't go upwind as well. I have snapped several fins by bottoming out in shallow water while tacking. I've tried some fiberglass fins, and didn't notice too much of a difference from the cheap plastic fins. I like that the fins break instead of stressing the fin boxes. I might try some of the small "knubster" fins for the back fins. Maybe that will give me the best of the quick turning 2 fin setup and still some tracking and upwind of the 4 fin setup.
I only ride it in light wind. I bought a cheap, short board surfboard off of craigslist for when the wind is good. I think when the wind is over 15 knots you're better off with a narrower board anyway, but it's all personal preference I guess.