Hi everyone, currently i have a two board quiver for wavesailing.
Being 94 kg i have a Goya C3 98 and a Goya Nitro106. Both very good boards.
But since winging took over more and more of my sailing days and i have two wingboards in my quiver now which cover now more and more of the "not so perfect" wavesailing days i want to reduce my waveboard quiver to one board to reduce my personal cargo.
My board will be used in side to sideoff conditions, 1,5m to 3m+ waves (with some punch in them), 5 and 4.5 Goya Banzais as my main sail sizes, and it should also carry some volume for float and ride or light inside impact zones.
I'm thinking about the current Goya Quad 104 for this. This would be +10 litres to my weight.
Does anyone in my weight class have some impressions to share for this board (or comparable boards from other brands)?
I definitely want a real waveboard, so please no freewave board rec. like a Goya One etc.
I am your weight (Christmas kilos still there....) and I have a Custom 4 94 (current version) as my 'small' board. Love the board, plug and play does everything that my skills allow me to do, and does it very well. As my big waveboard I am using the Quatro Cube 106. This board might be worth considering if it is not only side off, clean waves you would be using it in. Where do you sail? (I sail on the Northsea, Netherlands).
Hi Alex,
I'm about 4 kg more than you and use the Custom 4 94 & 104 as my 2 board solution. I only do wave sailing here in West Australia and have clocked up > 200 sessions with those boards. For me it's a really tough choice between those 2 because of their respective strengths and limitations. Let's start with what they have in common: same design, very similar feel in gybes (ie a true wave board turn where you engage the rail and drive the board through the turn, weighting the nose on exit), very similar in the waves when sailed according to the conditions and with optimal setup. This mainly refers to the 104, where I needed to offset the rear strap and ensure everything else was optimal (mast, footstrap & fin position) to get the same bite on the bottom turn. Whereas the 94 was super playful and responsive regardless of that, the 104 felt stiff at 1st and really loosened up after I made those changes. Having done that, when I'm sailing the 104 in it's optimal wind range I hardly know that it's a 104, it feels so free and easy. The only caveat is that it sometimes feels as if it could nose dive when you hit a lip really late and drive straight back down into the pit. While it feels like that, it's never done it, so it might just be a perception coming off it's greater length. As you'd expect the 104 feels much more stable than the 94 in windless lulls, points really well (just like the older versions), but gets onto the plane much easier than the older generations. It can handle stronger gusts pretty well but when the wind really picks up it feels like a handful to me and there's never a doubt that you'd rather be on the smaller board.
The 94 does everything the 104 does, but in a more lively, squirty way. On the wave you have a bit more freedom, especially when the wind is up and the bigger board becomes a handful. While it is less stable at slogging, it's surprisingly good at this and because it also gets on the plane super quick it can also do really well on the lighter, variable wind days. For me choosing which board to use depends on the conditions and how busy it is. For example yesterday there were only 2 of us sailing the local break along with about 5 kiters. Waves were nice, up to mast high but the wind was very variable. I chose the 94 which turned out to be fine because initially when the wind was a bit stronger I could get on the plane and stay there with a bit of technical sailing. Coming in was all about slowly sailing high and then pumping onto the swell you select. Then you're rewarded with a super responsive board on a nice clean wave. If it had been busier I definitely would have chosen the 104 because I wouldn't have had the luxury of choosing whichever wave I wanted to ride. In busy times you need to stake your claim early and the 104 would have been better for this.
So as you can see it's a difficult choice between the 2 because they do different things. What about your C3 98? Could this be the 1 board compromise? Let us know how you get on.
Cheers, Jens
I'm a holiday wave warrior and sail spots all around europe.
E. g. Northsea at Klitm?ller/Hanstholm or the Netherlands and Wissant. Atlantic at Brittany/France, Galicia and Portugal, Med at Carro/France and Sardinia.
To be honest i don't want to have a board below my bodyweight and find the C3 98 a really good board but hard (for my balance) for float and ride, where i usally choose the Nitro 106 (before that the Goya One 105).
I found that boards in the +5 ...10 litre range fit me quite well, if they don't ride/feel big which ususally corresponds to the width and volume in the tail. I found the Goya boards ride rather "small" so wondered if the Quad 104 could fit my needs.
Another board i find interesting is the Pyro 99 since it's 61,5cm wide like the Goya Quad 104.
Sounds like the 104 will work perfectly for you then. At my local spot there's 2 guys that use it as their everyday board and they are both lighter than me.
Cheers Jens
What are your current thoughts with your boards both volume and wave capabilities?
The Goya guy is a great big guy for waves.
Both the 94 and 104 go really well in the waves. Loose and playful but really dependable when it gets big. We've had up to double mast for the last 2 days and the 94 has been rock solid in the bottom turns thank god!
