I'd spoken with Kidman the night before about making a planing hull. We talked and philosophied and factualised. The only thing that came out of it was 5' x 23" x 3". That's the size I ended up making my so-called planing hull. Lindsay Lord probably would have hit me over the head with his now famous naval architecture book. Thanks to Richard Kenvin, and his curiosities and writings, I grabbed my electric saw and hacked out a foam block which I hoped to ride (glide, slide) tomorrow and get some of what Ryan Burch and Lucas Dirkse have been feeling; Friction free waveriding...or something like that.
What I actually got was two waves and a total of 4 seconds friction free sliding. It was fast and free, no doubt. Hard to manage, yes. The best wave I got was on my gut. Which as I thought more about it was pretty much belly boarding. I got back on my quad and having grown up on thrusters and twinnies was much more at home being able to direct my board up and down, rather than straight across.
That's when Mick Waters joined me on his planing hull. All 8 or so inches of it. Ed Lewis had sent him over one of his Enjoy handplanes. We had a killer session swapping and sharing waves. Mick got barrelled, I didn't. Walking back up the trail to my car, Kidman and family had just pulled up. Andrew's son Guthrie says, 'Hey Dad what's that he's holding?', at which Kidman replied, 'that's Jim's idea of a foamie.'
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