Severne Dyno 115L ongoing review

Um... 8.0 sail on a 32cm fin... there's your problem. If you plan on sailing the board with the 8.0 very often you will need more fin... Good review though!

A few tips to improve your gybing - you need to rotate the sail a lot earlier relative to the amount you have carved the board.

Your weight should transfer forward much more towards the nose as your gybe progresses to balance the board better.

Your foot should come out of the front strap as you release the back hand from your boom. Your front foot should then pivot allowing you to balance the board better by allowing your body to move forward earlier.

Good luck with your gybing.

Looks nice!

In the video, most of time you are like half-planing, nose high up, tail too low, plowing through the water with 15 mph.
From the water conditions, your weight and 8.0 sail size I would guess wind speeds were around 15-16kn. In such conditions you should easily reach 25 mph.

Two suggestions:
- when starting to plane, go more downwind in the beginning to get more speed and fully release the board from the water, only then you go upwind again. Thew Dyno has a strong Vee, like my Fox, and has this "plowing" tendency at lower speeds. So go downwind to get some speed, create lift from the fin and fly over the water.
- for freeriding, use a bigger (carbon) fin. Your fin might not get you the lift you need.
- for such freeride-conditions, use a 4 footstrap configuration, with footsraps in the outer positions if you can.

Jibes already look good, as many already said: put your body weight more forward, bend your knees slightly. It is a natural "defensive" reaction to keep the body weight back to not fall over, but by doing so, you sink the tail and loose all speed. For full planing jibe, bring your weight forward and let the sail pull you forward.

have fun!
mariachi76

I was able to get the board out yesterday in mostly 5.8 conditions, except for some lulls.

Honestly, I struggled quite a bit to get planing. The first problem which took me a while to get sorted, as I've spent most of my time foiling lately due to conditions just not being good for small sail waveriding, was the mast foot position. I had to move it around 1-1.5cm forward to get planing when heading outbound. I had it set up dead center every other time I used it, but also struggled to get planing. Once I did that, it released way better.

The other issue was weeds. Yesterday in particular was very messy water in the gulf filled with weed clumps, and the stock thruster fins just grabbed everything that came close. I would get up sub-planing, feel like the board wanted to release, then realize and then need to clear a huge bunch of clumps from the board.

Anyway, kind of annoyed that I didn't realize the mast foot needed to be so far forward, earlier.

Aside from that, now that it's less about rig trimming and more about my own skills, it feels a lot better catching the small waves here than the other boards I've got. Can't wait to get it out again and focus on getting the most out of this board and improving my own skills, instead of figuring out either sail, board trim, or something else. And hopefully less weeds on the next time I take it out.

I'll probably re-visit the outboard straps again in single fin mode with the mast foot further forward. Just don't know when it'll be blowing hard enough again to ride this vs. just riding a foil. There's a great spot that I think I would really like going screaming around on here on the right wind/tide, more of a bump and jump situation. Will probably need another cold front to get the most out of it.

I took it out again with both the 5.8 and 5.0 and 33cm single Black Project Kraken . Felt like it should have been well powered. Maybe my skills have atrophied due to so much foiling, but if I swapped to the 145L blast with the same sail, I could get that planing way easier than the Dyno. I've had to set the mast foot forward to get the Dyno going instead of at the center. I'm also re-visiting the tips here: www.severnesails.com/dyno-board-setup-with-simon-bornhoft-part-4-super-early-planing-for-all-levels/

It's definitely more technical to get it planing than the Blast. Not entirely sure how I feel about it because clearly I am doing something wrong when I can easily waterstart with 5.8 or 5.0 but try to aim downwind for the push and am just not getting going. Maybe I have my weight too far back to begin with. It was very choppy but not deep swells, with really patchy gusts supposedly from 20-35kts (wind meter was probably a little high but it's right there nearby).

Also I've noticed that when I set it up with the stock thrusters I have an easier time than with the single. Looks like similar conditions this evening, so I'll likely set it up with thrusters this time and try again.

Late edit:I just remembered that one of the main annoyances of this board is that the mast base is very difficult to slide in on this board compared to my others. The nut gets jammed and is very difficult and frustrating to get into the track all the way.

I have a 115 Dyno and use it with sails up to 6.2. Personally I feel that's probably the max sail size I would use. The returns are diminishing with much bigger sails and the weight of the rig is starting to become a problem. I am significantly heavier than you but find once it gets "too windy" for me to foil I can swap the same sail straight onto the 115 Dyno and it works well.

Also, for free riding I would switch the straps to the outboard position and use double straps at the back. I would also run the straps a touch further back for free riding. There is quite a difference in top speed using that setup. Only use inboard / single strap if you know you'll be riding waves.

From the way the spray is coming off the underneath of the board so far forward I'd suggest putting the straps in the rear holes and moving the mast back a bit. It also looks like the windward rail is lower than the leeward rail. Sail it flat or better still with the leeward rail lower.
Then the board will then sail off the fin more instead of ploughing through the water.
Or it could be that the wind is just too light.
If the wind is too light to be properly powered up with a 6.5m, your 8m & 145 Blast would be a better choice.

Fox 120 should carry 8.0 without problem, its +35lt from your weight so it should be enough to be your big board. I would have sold the blast 145, and keep the 102jp fsw for future when you will have stronger winds, blast would bring in good money too instead of old jp, so you can replace the jp with that money later on if you wish, but if jp is the polakov version one, i think they are very nice boards even if they are old, they are light too, worth keeping, not easy to find single fin fsw boards these days.

That spot looks like its flat, blast is already dull imo, so it would be a little boring, fox is definitely more exciting to ride and its faster.
If your sail range is 5.0-8.0, two boards can cover, 5.0 and 6.5 for dyno 115 (105lt would have been a better size) and bigger sails for fox 120.

If you are worried about build quality in dyno, you should be more worried about fox, they have the white version now but i doubt paint job and outer shell is stronger. I had no issues with dynos durability (except the goretex auto vent taking in water) or paint, but i did have problems with fox.

About single fin, narrower (leading edge to trailing edge) and upright fins work nice with dyno. Definitely not bp kraken, they are too wide and too stiff, doesn't feel good at all. K4 feeling stiff is interesting, they are plastic and should be way softer than g10, maybe its because its too big. I am using dynos oldest version fins for thruster setup, they are narrower and softer, olso originals are too big and slows the board unnecessarily, that is for smaller board sizes though. Its like they were too lazy to design different size fins, 12,5 side fins from 85lt to 115lt, no 19cm center for 85lt, just lazy imo.

Took the Dyno out again yesterday, 40cm K4 Fang again with the 7.5 Gator. I think I had too much downhaul on Gator, but other than that it felt great once I got it going.

Mast track about .5cm from the center mark. Straps outboard and all the way back.

It felt GREAT when cruising over the small waves and steering up and down the backsides of them. Much more maneuverable than the Blast, and didn't feel like I was getting beat up when smacking into/over them.

Rear straps definitely feels more lively.

Wind was just borderline. One of my buddies was on a Goya 116L, also with a 7.5 Gator but was about 20lbs lighter than me and much more experienced. Had to push much deeper downwind to stay on plane even with the big fin. He was using a 31cm that looked more like a freeride with a little more sweep to it.

I think that the 40cm is a bit to big honestly. Trying to carve a jibe at speed is extremely difficult. I can get some light wind jibes okay but I definitely feel the fin fighting me as soon as I have planing speed. Next time I may even try just going with the stock thruster or the weed thruster on the same sail to see how it performs better.

This isn't really a review, more indicative of my skill level.

Conditions were varying between underpowered to overpowered with the 5.0 Blade, on stock thruster setup. Wind was dead onshore for a while, and I got burned out trying to get out of the inside, unsuccessfully, until I launched further upstream of the rip current.

After the wind shifted to be more side short, I finally got on the outside. One of the crashes, my shin hit the board so hard that it dented/split the composite and cut my leg severely. I didn't realize how bad it was, as it didn't hurt, until I saw the blood streaming down my leg.

This is a long video. It's frustrating a bit because I think I chose my launches poorly for a while and spent a lot of energy on the inside, while other guys on smaller volume boards were pushing on the outside. Was having a hard time getting planing because I was getting trapped between shallows and eating waves. If I dropped downwind to get on plane, I would strike the fins.

I've had much more success with more side shore conditions. But, the guys out there sailing further out are a lot more experienced than me.

Had a really good morning with the Dyno.

6.6 conditions, weedy so I used a 25 MFC Weed Wave and 12 K4 Dugong fronts.

Was too lit up on the 6.6 at first with it at the center of the mast track but 1cm forward of there calmed it down quite a bit. I'm still pretty crappy about jibing in the waves but that's mainly because I don't get to use these small boards that often.

Had a bunch of fun catching 1-2ft swells on the outside of the protected area. It feels great properly trimmed, way more fun than my Blast in those conditions and I can shlog a bit in the straps to catch waves even in a 4:3 wetsuit.


More damage:

I had a goofy forward fall, not a catapult, catching a wave wrong and my knee hit the board on the side/center in front of the mast track. It'll need glass to repair. Kind of annoying because it didn't even seem like that hard of a hit.

Still like the board of course but I guess I'm hard in gear and will likely give this lots of scars.



First and last clips are on a different board but the rest are all Dyno.

As someone who has owned a lot of Dynos I feel I should add some background facts here, most of which are already known by Dyno owners and longer term fans of this board.

Firstly the Dyno is perhaps THE success story of recent board design, outselling many other cross-over boards from other brands.

It's also worth noting that the Dyno started off purely as a performance wave board, for wave sailors who might occasionally want to blast about with bigger sails on flat water days. As such, it was never intended as a beginner or intermediates' board.

The early ones (V1?) were made in a new factory in China, in a mold, and some of the early ones did split on the rails due to excessive sanding ahead of the painting process.
My own Dyno 95 split on one rail by the back strap and I was immediately offered a replacement under warranty. I had no problems with my Dyno 85 which came from the same factory. But I understand that V2 production was moved to the Cobra factory in Thailand.

Supply delays meant there was a wait for my replacement board, and so I stuck gaffer tape over the non-structural crack and continued to sail the board until the new one arrived.
I then slightly regretted giving up on the first board, because it was super light! Whereas the replacement was a more normal weight at 6.6kgs.

As more and more intermediates took to the Dyno, the squared off nose became a problem for those with a habit of doing catapults. So the current version (V3) has a pointy nose, making the hull slightly longer but with no performance loss. Fanatic made the similar nose design decision with their Stubby.

V3 of the Dyno is still a performance board, but a more user-friendly one.
If you are heavy on your gear, or like many of us have numpty moments, you can also buy a 'heavy duty' build version of the Dyno, and that has a black and white livery, instead of the red version. This comes out a little heavier, but not so much that most will notice.