Ruben is reporting us from Lake Garda
Road trip to Lago di Garda
"Let’s go, we leave to Italy in 10 minutes" are the exact words they told me on a Thursday night.
It took us about 5 hours to drive from Munich to Lago di Garda with the Sofa Movie lab van which probably has everything a surfer wants to have inside a van. The music system was turned on to the max while we enjoyed the nice nightly views of the Alps.
The next morning I had a bit of a slow mellow morning mood. The chilly temperatures kept me under the blankets a bit longer than everyone else. For your info: At Lake Garda the wind starts to blow at 06:00 early in the morning from the North (Peler ) when it takes a break around 11:00 and turns around and blows less stronger from the south (Ora) for a few more hours.
Soon the parking place at malcesine started to look so busy as if there was a world cup going on.
I just had to get out after my morning mood was eased up as I wanted to go and have a few spins on the new chop-chop fins from Unifiber.
I was the last guy in the water and went sailing for a few hours with a bit sun from behind the huge mountains. Me in a thick wetsuit with booties on …how funny is that! Before this, I could not really understand how people have so much fun sailing all covered up in the cold. I must admit that if I had no booties; my sessions would have been very… very short though. So thanks to Martin from Sofa Movie Lab for the nicely fitted booties.
The rest of the days were more or less the same, waking up early mornings and head to malcesine for a cold session. And if the Ora blows we drive to Pier.
Than about the fins:
I got to spin the 21 and the 19 cm fins. First try was with 18 knots wind 5.2 square meter sail on a about 98 liter board with the 21cm chop chop. I am happy to finally have a small fin that goes so well upwind. Actually a big issue for new school freestylers today as everybody wants to go switch stance while forgetting how much downwind they end up after finally sticking that move. I was a bit surprised about the performance of the fin in the chopy chops conditions like a had at Lake Garda .
My conclusion is that the Chop Chop 21 cm planes early and maintains a good speed between the chops, than it pops easy which allows you to use less energy to come out of the water.
The 19cm chop chop was used with stronger winds gusting up to 25 knots. Amazing speed and slides like a hot knife true butter. Not much to say more as it did what it should do.
All together we had a super sunny session down at Lake Garda and hope to have better temperatures soon!
Stay tuned for the next reports.
Ruben Petrisie NB-50 (with BIG thanks to Sofa Movie Lab for the pics)
