Board Review: Used 9 Fish Beluga

Buddy of mine sent me a link to a board for sale on craigs list. It was a 9: Fish (which I had never heard of) beluga. Had some pics, board looked like it was in decent shape, and it came with a board bag. It was listed for 50 bucks. I said - "The bag is probably worth the 50, you can probably get rid of it for 65 if its awful".

Long story short, the board ended up in my barn.

Its a 5'10 round nosed twinner listed as a quad because they ship it with two little guider fins. Epoxy. 3X22X19(f)/17(r) pop-out probably made somewhere real far away. If, like me, you surf in places where you have to climb down a cliff, you can just throw this board off the cliff and not worry about dinging it. I'm not sure if its taken on some water weight or if its just that its thick epoxy, but its on the heavy side.

After the long stretch of no waves, last week we got the little pulse of wind swell mixing with 1.1 foot long period S/SW (which I honestly think makes a difference on wind swell days but that's another story). So I took her out. Have to admit, the shape is pretty sweet. 60's style fish with dramatic swallow tail. It seemed like a board your dad would have ridden if they rode boards shorter than 1009 feet.

Paddling this thing out to the point was like being aquaman and commanding dolphins to just take you there. One paddle stroke on this bad boy seemingly fires up a hidden engine which shoots you out to your break effortlessly. IT PADDLES LIKE A DREAM. HOWEVER, IT DUCKDIVES LIKE A CADILLAC HEARSE.

In waist high mush this board was flying around. Back foot a few inched off the swallow tail and its loose but fast and you can throw it around a bit. Get everything you can into that one little section where you can snap a turn, and then........... HOLY SHEEEEETTTTTT............ you just pull a modified Mason Ho and walk up to the nose of this little potato and..... VIOLA! you've actually made it to the inside section. Now you step back and make a few more mini turns / pumps.

On the day I surfed for probably 2 hours and had a blast. Maybe a handful of solid waist high waves with waist high walls (real waves) came through that I was in the right place for, and the board just effortlessly gets moving and keeps you in waves where there are crappy, listless sections most boards its size have no prayer in making.

Crappy Day Review: 5/5 - I've been looking for this board my whole life
Decent Day Review: TBD
Decent approaching good but less than head high day: TBD
Anything better than that: she's staying dry.


Send me free surfboards and I'll review them for you. Send me free surfboards and cash and I'll write glowing reviews for you.
Thanks,
RMDN

 

The sheep that Barry copulates with is on the rag again.

 

Stock photo from the net.