BLACK BOX
The Black Box is not a wave board for all conditions. The Black Box is not about top speed. The Black Box is not about jumping. The Black Box is the board that excels in small, mushy waves and light winds. Many boards are marketed for real-world conditions and real-world sailors. Dany Bruch’s creation takes it a step further by offering a very short and wide shape with no excess volume that will create and hold speed on a wave like never before.
The Black Box comes in a tri-fin set-up; outcentered side fins and a trailer fin.
Black Box’s position in the range
The Black Box places itself outside of Starboard’s core wave range as it’s nothing like the Quads, NuEvos or the Kodes. It steps beyond the boundaries of modern wave board design by being a unique light wind/mushy waves toy. The short length offers maneuverability. The width and trailer fin generate speed and drive on the wave. The tail Vee and the out-centered fins allow for easy, forgiving turns. The board feels loose, with a lot of buoyancy. All these features come together to make the best performing light wind wave board.
• The light wind/mushy waves toy
• Wave speed comes from the board, not the sail
Makes wave riding fun when some wouldn’t even consider going out.
What’s New?
The Black Box is not your regular wave board. It is very short at 215cm with a lot of width in the tail that carries through to the nose. The sharper rails help generate speed while the rocker provides maneuverability. These characteristics allow the board to quickly accelerate on the smallest and mushiest waves.
This self-generated speed combined with the very short length will let the rider link together more turns with more speed when the conditions would normally only allow for one, if any. The Black Box comes in a tri-fin configuration with twin fins spaced wide apart for easy turns and a trailer fin for drive and stability.
Additional Information
“It’s fast as a rocket and in small waves it’s a toy!! I am loving it….used it again one day on 5.6…in really, really shitty conditions…nobody could do anything and I was flying around playing full on with the tiny waves.”
“The board is working incredible good in shitty conditions…I have sailed it yesterday for 4 hours powered up and today another 2 hours on 5.6 totally underpowered…planing a bit at the beginning and non planing at the end…but riding shitty waves full speed…the board, as soon it gets a bit of acceleration of the wave it starts to get loose and it maintains speed all the time…a few people have tried it now and they flipped with it too…Adam Lewis from the OTC came of the water and just said that he had never used a board like that…he was not planing at all, as the wind died, but as he said…on the wave, with no power on the sail he could just surf…he will send me some words over ASAP for you to read…he loved it…he said he wished to have that board at the UK comp last week.. as it was bad onshore crap…;-) anyway…I have put together some footage of today…just some clips so you can have a look at what I am talking about…attached is the clip in very, very low res…I will invite you now to the link for drop box to download in higher quality…”
“I want to give the board these days to more people and will film them…I want guys with different weight to try it…to see if they all can move it same easy as me…you can’t imagine how many mates on the beach are desperate to give it a go…;-) it causes a lot of attention… Do you actually know how many liters it got? I calculate around 85/90…but I got nothing written on the sticker…”
Excerpts from Dany Bruch’s emails
“I was totally blown away, for me it has transformed how I would look at sailing 12-20 knot cross to onshore conditions where normally you wouldn’t be able to enjoy wave-sailing. It did take a little getting used to sailing off the plane and didn’t track upwind as well off the plane as a longer board. I had barely enough wind to get out or even move around. Once on the wave the board picked up speed incredible well, once up to speed it never lost it!
I never used a board that just didn’t slow down in float and ride conditions here. A few waves I had absolutely no power in the sail and the board just kept speed, you could almost ignore the sail and just surf. In my mind it really closed the gap between surfing and windsurfing. I was also surprised that such a wide board would respond so well to front foot pressure, you could really lay the sail down and commit to a turn even in light winds or fatter, flatter wave face you still could throw the tail around and the width and chunky nose just kept you moving with the wave. Genuinely the most fun board I’ve used in a while, made me excited to sail in conditions I wouldn’t even normally consider sailing in.
Adam Lewis, OTC
NuEVO
The NuEvo is Starboard’s high performance surfboard style wave board that excels in sideshore to side-onshore conditions, from knee to logo high waves. Its specialties are tight rail turns with excellent rail-to-rail transitions and extra-tight top turns. The NuEvos still have good capabilities in larger side-offshore wave conditions. These boards react like surfboards with all the characteristics of high-end windsurfing wave boards. The hyper-compact outline helps the NuEvo in jumping and aerial maneuvers. This outline also reduces the swing weight of the board while the wider tail helps the rider to boost off ramps with ease. The forward Vee and soft rails dampen the effects of chop, making the NuEvos comfortable boards for general sailing. The NuEvos are twin fin boards.
NuEvo’s position in the range
The NuEvos sit beside the Quads and the Kode Wave to form Starboard’s core wave range. Rail-to-rail transitions are what the NuEvo is known for and they are smooth and fluid. The pads are specially designed for comfort, using a double-layered pad design with a low-density soft inside-layer. The twin fin set up gives the rider true grip in the turns while still allowing for that perfect release. The toed-in angles of the fins allow the board to be more responsive in turns and give it that real surfboard feel.
The surfboard style wave board with a real surfboard feel Excels in knee to logo high waves, sideshore to side-onshore Hyper-compact outline allowing for the tightest top turns and the most flowing rail-to-rail transitions
The Quads are more power carving boards that produce more drive. These boards love to power up and down the wave face vertically, generating as much drive and acceleration as possible. They are most rewarding when pushed hard off the rails, so better suited to full-rail power-turns as opposed to a snappier/ looser rail-to-rail feel of the NuEvos. The Quads are four-fin boards and the pads are single-layer 6mm pads with a soft bumper shaped in under the heels.
The Kode Waves are faster, more aerial ‘next-generation’ style wave boards. These are for wave riders who like to blend tweaked aerials and Takas with wave carving. Their speed and acceleration also make them the most ideal for big airs and double loops. They are twin fin boards that also offer a single fin option to turn them into a fast high-wind blaster with more traditional single-fin handling characteristics. The pads are single layer 10mm thick without bumpers.
What’s New
For 2014 Starboard has added 4 new models to the Nuevo range (86, 92, 101 & 110). This is very exciting as the range now feels more complete and offers the rider a wider selection. The 73 and the 80 have remained unchanged from 2013 as these boards are performing excellently in all conditions with all levels of riders. The arrival of the 101 and 110 liters models is quite significant as these models are intended as lighter wind boards for all riders, with all the original features of the NuEvo, allowing for the same performance in lighter winds.
The NuEvo holds its soft surfboard rails up front, which blend into a hard blade rail through the tail. For this year more V has been added under the mast track going through to the tail. This radically improves rail-to-rail transitions in the larger boards (101 & 110). The entry rocker has also been made finer and the double concaves have been finished a little deeper to assist early planing and acceleration. The curve on the rail still keeps the looseness and responsiveness of the board.
The new sizes have also kept a fairly flat deck around the footstraps. Like for most surf boards, the flat deck increases heal-to-toe responsiveness and helps to keep the rail tracking. These small tweaks add to the responsiveness that the NuEvos are known for.
NuEvo History
“The idea of the Nuevo (previously known as the Chopper) came about 4 years ago. There were a few ideas I felt were missing in the current crop of production boards. I started building some longer boards with wider tails and twin fins set close to the rails. These boards were working relatively well but still felt like they were missing something. I started thinking about what the extra length in the nose and tail was doing and I ended up cutting off the nose and tails and reshaping a board that I already had (hence the name Chopper). It ended up being a funny looking board but when I tested it , it was really good. It still had plenty of drive and felt looser and even more responsive to foot movement than before. I thought it was good so I gave it to Ben Severne to try out at Margaret River and he came back being stoked about how well the board went. I decided to make a few more and refined the shapes to fit the shorter lengths.
These boards were working really well now. We sailed the boards all over the place from Gnaraloo to Geraldton and even Indonesia. I started to give the boards to others to try and got some really good feedback.
Through this feedback we made changes. We’ve done a lot of testing and made a lot of alterations since then. Some of the changes we kept and some of them we changed back to where we started. A few hundred boards down the track I’m really happy with how the boards have evolved and how the boards are feeling now.
I’ve built the NuEvos/Chopper style boards in sizes from 60 to 120 litres, and I’ve been really lucky to have people of all abilities and sizes to test theseboards and give me feedback. Now I’m looking forward to developing them even further and seeing where the evolution takes them.”
James Hooper, NuEvo shaper and designer
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