New V10

robin.mousley wrote: Great pic - who took it?

Sally

I beat the other one by 8 seconds last time and 20 seconds this time so his V10 must be faulty!

I think HE'S faulty, not the V10

good work Rob - great to hear your perspectives on another ski!!
not many can comment objectively about so many skis.

have owned vault, swordfish & new v10 - all good ski's in own right & it comes down to seat comfort & personal skill level / preferences.

overall IMO the v10 suits me best from speed v. stability, surfing, aesthetics & comfort perspectives.

personally think the lighter layup options are superior in the fenn:
- black ski's overheat ( aviation studies show black planes get over 100 degree centigrade & white ones 60 degrees C): my stella SES black carbon ski suffered delamination evidently from being left in the sun & they mark up badly, epic black ski's have a reputation for leaking with no gel coat & I won't buy one until they offer white gel coated ones.
- the ultra / kevlar layup flexes unnervingly & is difficult to repair but are a great weight.
- my v10 is a 16.5kg performance layup (love the strength but not weight), vault was 11kg kevlar layup & fun ski with shorter length( lots of flex, seems split), SF 11kg carbon & strong (seat didn't suit me)
- my ideal ski would be a strong 12kg white carbon epic v10 ski

ultimately my speeds change little due to the engine not changing, but believe out of these 3 ski's the epic v10 is the fastest .........

Bad call checking the forum this morn - 20 minutes late for work now!

Great pics on Mako's Facebook page - twenty or thirty of them if you just click on the image another comes up. Interesting looking at that water, as you say Rob very challenging stuff, sloppy every which way coming from the side or port quarter. Few tongues sticking out like little kids on their pushy's for first time, few braces and tentative strokes. Find that stuff no fun and for me in SES much higher adrenalin (sh_t-scared adrenalin) than big blowy stuff in your face or from behind (wooohoo adrenalin).

Excellent review too along with argy bargey mates having a dig at each other.

Finally had a couple of great paddles in the new V10.

The first paddle was in nasty sloppy conditions last Tuesday. I got the best result yet in a race, but not by a huge amount.

Then we did a 30km training paddle on Saturday in truly revolting conditions - post storm slop in False Bay. The boat felt extremely corky, bouncing about on the ocean and although I never came close to falling out, I felt unbalanced and unable to settle down into a rhythm. Horrible.

And by now I was beginning to have doubts about my ability to paddle the bloody thing.

Then, a glimmer of hope on Sunday. We did a 10km paddle out from Fish Hoek to the Roman Rock lighthouse and back. The sea was choppy, with a light southeaster, but this time I felt very comfortable - the waves were coming from one direction, and I was able to settle into a regular rhythm and I felt as though I was powering at speed into wind... And then, when we turned around, it felt that, although the waves weren't big, that I was catching them with some ease and I was linking them together. I enjoyed the paddle, and felt a lot better about the possibilities of forging a friendship with the boat.

Unhappily I had let my GPS run flat so I have no record of either of the weekend paddles!

But last night it all came together.

Our Tuesday Series race in Hout Bay was cancelled - the wind was offshore and too strong.

So we did a reverse Millers Run in False Bay instead. The wind was moderate - 15-20kt - so the first few km were on the flat. Still, right from the word go, I felt as though I was paddling fast. But when we got into the runs, I had a ball.

I find the boat is lively and manoeuvrable on the waves. To describe the conditions a little more - the wind was quite westerly so it was coming from behind my right shoulder; the wind generated waves were a little confused and were mostly fairly short and steep. So you had to manoeuvre quite a bit to link the runs together.

I found myself stable to the point where I felt that I never missed a stroke - when necessary I was always able to power onto the next wave. I thought the ski ramps the next wave very readily, and it seemed to glide on at speed for ever...

It definitely doesn't have any of the old habit of the old V10 of the backside being thrown around by the waves; it holds its line superbly.

So... after a less than easy start, I think I'm beginning to fall in love with this new toy...

Hi Robin I have the performance model new v10 and have no problems with the corky bounce that you describe .I think the extra weight makes all the deference in a bad chop.Good to hear you like your new ski!

Another week another race....Results are up Rob. Same result with this one and the other one. I seriously think in last nights conditions the other one would have beaten me on a Swordfish. He's not having it and blames a collision with and old Molokai ski which resulted in impact damage around the waterline, and a "feeling" that he was catching me. You're more comfortable in the V10 ,than the other one, and I could only hang onto you for one lap before running out of whatever it is that keeps one going.
Highlight for me was taking you and Tim "Olympic Champion" Brabants around Sentinel rock! Couldn't make it stick though.

Any comments on the race on tue, Rob?

I think the following table explains Rob's silence.

13 S Tim Brabants Nelo 00:59:18 5.92 10.13 +0h 8m 38s +0h 0m 51s
14 V Gary Kroukamp Fenn Elite 00:59:35 5.95 10.08 +0h 8m 55s +0h 0m 17s
15 M Robin Mousley New V10 01:00:24 6.03 9.95 +0h 9m 44s +0h 0m 49s
16 DS Barry Penn Double 01:00:45 6.07 9.89 +0h 10m 5s +0h 0m 21s
16 DS Marc Cloete Double 01:00:45 6.07 9.89 +0h 10m 5s +0h 0m 21s
17 V Tom Thring Klapoti 01:00:59 6.09 9.85 +0h 10m 19s +0h 0m 14s
18 V Dave Mills Not Sure 01:01:04 6.10 9.84 +0h 10m 24s +0h 0m 5s
19 B Johann van Blerck Swordfish 01:01:32 6.15 9.76 +0h 10m 52s +0h 0m 28s
22 M Dale Lippstreu New V10 with a ding 01:02:09 6.21 9.67 +0h 11m 29s +0h 0m 15s

So what is everyone else paddling?

Ironically, my boat is a FENN Elite, previously owned by a certain Robin Mousley.

Even more ironically you only beat an intermediate boat, being the v10, by 50 seconds. I would have expected an elite to be further ahead.

Love2ski wrote: Even more ironically you only beat an intermediate boat, being the v10, by 50 seconds. I would have expected an elite to be further ahead.

Who says the V10 is an intermediate ski? That's your opinion (which you're entitled to, of course).

Come to that, what does "elite ski" mean, in any case? To me, the V10 is a step up (in terms of (potential) speed, especially on the flat... Does that make it elite? I don't know, but I do expect to do better in it than I do on my other skis all things being equal.

Of course all things aren't equal.

So, how am I finding the V10?

Well, I'd say that I'm still getting used to it. I haven't found it a totally straightforward switch from the Evo II.

Gary had a really good race on Tuesday; the previous Tuesday we went downwind together and I was already changed by the time he arrived at the finish! He is particularly fit at the moment; the race on Tuesday was in tough conditions and he was clearly stronger than me upwind (and I'll claim something on my rudder for the one section, where you can see clearly on the GPS track that I was going significantly slower than on the same section on the other laps). One swallow does not a summer make - see you next week, Gary!

The V10 has much less rocker than the Evo II and it feels very different. In the conditions that we had on the reverse Millers run last Tuesday, the V10 felt extremely quick. On the two Millers Runs we did last Saturday, I felt I was working too hard to get on the runs and I was disappointed with my times (first run ave 14kph; second run 14.2kph).

In the rough water this Tuesday I felt very comfortable but it may be that I was losing some energy to stability without really feeling it.

It was a fun race though - I was dicing with Gary every lap, he overtaking me upwind and me overtaking him downwind (until the last lap when he dropped me for good).

Is the boat a silver bullet upgrade from the Evo II? Not for me at any rate. But I don't feel that I'm losing out paddling the V10, it may be that at my age and ability, the Evo II might be the right downwind boat for me; and I should use the V10 on the flat.

Put it this way - I've had the best racing result so far in the V10 (albeit not by much) this season, and I'm at the point where I feel challenged, not defeated by the boat.

Jury's out on whether it's really the boat for me. But I'm enjoying the experience in the meantime!

Give it more time and more bum in the seat

cheeseman wrote: Give it more time and more bum in the seat

I think it's quite tight already.....this from Rob's initial impression "After an hour of hard paddling last night however, there was a certain amount of rawness between my buttocks... Nothing a little vaseline won't sort out I suspect".

This discussion is really deteriorating!!!

That issue is indeed sorted by the aforementioned petroleum product...

Ironically, the boat is "Elite", but the paddler (me, to be clear) on it, is not.

I have the new v10. It is 45 cm wide like a swordfish. I always thought 45cm wide boats were intermediate. 42/43 cm boats like the fenn elite are elite level.

I must be fooling myself thinking I was moving from an xt to an intermediate boat being my v10. Clearly I should be falling off it more.

Love2ski wrote: I have the new v10. It is 45 cm wide like a swordfish. I always thought 45cm wide boats were intermediate. 42/43 cm boats like the fenn elite are elite level.

I must be fooling myself thinking I was moving from an xt to an intermediate boat being my v10. Clearly I should be falling off it more.

Maybe you're just a better paddler than you realize . The first generation Nelo Ocean Vintage Ski is 45cm wide... I challenge you to paddle it in ocean conditions and call it an intermediate ski. It is less stable than my Think Uno Max! I would agree with Rob, that the definition of an 'intermediate' ski is not a clear one and up for debate. Various ski categories certainly cannot be defined strictly by width. Look at the Think Uno Max, Vadja Hawx, V14, and V12, 4 boats I have paddled in close proximity to one another. They are all within 0.6cm of each other in terms of width but paddle and behave quite differently from each other, despite very similar widths.

Some very interesting comments guys.
I think you`re right in saying that the how we view a ski is very personal, i.e. one man`s elite may be another woman`s intermediate. As many people here know, in the kayaking world they have their stability scale from 1 (super wobbly) up to 10 (barge), or something like that.
If we insist on putting skis in certain categories, then it stands to reason that we need to have a uniform way of doing it. As I`ve mentioned previously, I have compiled a list of the skinniest boats, separating boats of the same width by length. The sole purpose of this method was to give an idea of just how (potentially) wobbly one boat might be against another, with the length thrown in to suggest which of two boats of equal length should be the fastest (all other things being equal).
From the comments above I feel some people use the elite/intermediate/beginner labels in relation to stability, while for others it means comparing potential boat speeds.
The major downfall of my list, as Dale pointed out, is that it doesn`t take into consideration the water-line width (which is very hard to obtain and also varies with the payload paddling), and also, because I was primarily concerned with wobbliness, it is constrained by that, rather than potential boat speed.
If we, global paddlers, want a uniform categorising system, then now is probably a good time to put one together. Dale put a sample of figures into the machine and came out with a ratio of potential speed for those boats. Bearing in mind that my compilation is more related to width than length, it means that the `skinniest boats`list will be close, but not totally spot on in predicting the fastest boat. (which is why boats of the same width may be equally tippy and classed in the same category, but with relatively longer length could be faster than a skinnier but shorter boat).
I suggest the way forward would be to process the width and length measurements for all of the skis available, as Dale did on the computer for the intermediate selection we were discussing.
Although the width/length system alone may be crude, it is simple, and placing elite boats at narrower than 45cm width, intermediates between 45cm and 50cm, and beginners at wider than 50cm, it does work effectively and also points to why some of the comments on here are how they are.
The only thing left to do after that is to decide where to draw the lines. The lines separating categories have to be seen for what they really are, i.e. marks on a continuum of speed and wobbliness.
I hope somebody has the time to put the entire list through the computer - it will be interesting to see which boats go up in the charts, and which ones go down. Regardless though, I do think this would be a very useful tool for all of us, and also a bit more reliable than anything we`ve had before.
So who`s up for crunching the numbers?
ps I guess this really should be a new thread, but let`s see what response we get here and perhaps Rob will bump it up if it deserves it.
Owen