A second test on the UFO Weed 30 in combination with the Monster. I was too late for the morning wind but was lucky to get a nice short period of wind. All runs were set within ten minutes and I got back just in time before the wind died.

The thought behind the UFO Weed Speed was to create a full on Weed Speed fin that would be nearly just as fast as a high aspect  fin in grass conditions with low waves. We wanted to create lift under the tail and enough power to track well upwind and still be fast cross wind. Yesterday I was amazed by the speed I got out of it in the one gust I got. I was even a little suspicious on my speeds but both GPS devices showed the same nubers so it should be good. I hoped for some more testing today and got the 10 minutes in which I realized'Olivier created another winner.

At Horst the water is very shallow  close to the shore. The water is also flattest over there. The normal procedure with a high aspect fin is to sail towards the shore and drive the board as close to the land as possible. When lucky a gybe won't slow the board down enough to not catch grass. If it does you have to walk for 100-200 metres to get deep enough waterlevel to start again. With the weed fin you can start 3 meters from the shore and bear-off into the flat section. The weed fin gives an extreme longitudinal support which also helps on the chop. As the tail is lifted enough to cope with the regular chop en nose lift is high enough to become truly fast.

After today's test I am 99% sure the board will even be faster with the weed fin and I think I would have gone up to 80km today if I would have had a 54 wide board with a smaller weed fin. I will make sure to get a 22-24 fin to test on the Rockstar 54. Also the 30-cm Weed seemed to be on the big side for the Monster 66 (46 tail).

So are there no downsides? Yes there are. When not super windy and gusty the weed is clearly slower. Well powered up the fin points remarkably high, in cross wind there is more than enough tail lift and you can really rail the board. In high wind and stronger gusts the UFO Weed Speed really comes aliveand simply gets stunningly fast.