Speaking of new toys...bought this lightly used Vflex Outer Islands last week.
From the moment I started paddling it I knew it was going to be good and the first waves confirmed it.
It's (at best guess) a smart board model but in big boys dimensions. 6'8" X 21&1/2 X 2&7/8".
Floats me at 88kgs to my belly button. Silky smooth as a relaxed rider.
Paddles like a dream around the line up and gets into waves smoothly with early planing ease.
Once up and riding its got excellent speed which is a product of the concave bottom. Likes a steep wall to lock into and I've already had some nice barrels in last weeks swell that it happily came out of.
Easy to do roundhouse cutbacks.
When a fat section presents itself it doesn't mind a step forward to trim across them.
Taking off on my backhand I purposely left it really late on some and with the board almost sideways on the take off the rails would still allow a controlled drop to be taken. Really forgiving just as my fave midlength the Woosley 7'6" vquad is. It's very close to feeling like a shorter version of that.
If there's any longboard crew who'd like to spice things up and ride a shorter board then they couldn't go wrong with one of these.
Here's some pics next to a Firewire 6'8" addvance. The pic angle makes the Outer islands look chunkier but its the other way around with the Firewire feeling much thicker under the arm.
Also nice that it came with the Switch blade quad fins.
Compliments my 6' Lost round nose fish perfectly.
