After years of riding a variety of Hess boards, this weekend I got my first ding. Out at the beach this Sunday there was a light offshore and a building swell. I was around kirk/law and waves were overhead with some pitching, but mostly just solid peaks dancing around. I was out on the 6'8" and was glad for the extra float to fight the mass of water that was moving around. Not impossible, but a steady northward current. Mid-session I took off on one late and tried to cheat it by angling down the face instead of dropping strait to the bottom. I got hung up and when I stood up I touched the board for a moment before it dropped away and then reconnected with my body. When I lost contact with the board it pulled up the face and the inside rail met my back foot and then my back knee. Hard.
Underwater I felt the pain and thought it hurt, but I wasn't crippled. I spent no time nursing my knee and paddled back out. As soon as I was through the inside bar and into the middle area of calm water I stopped to flex my knee and feel bad for myself. The pain was bad but my knee worked and the waves were good so I got back to the lineup and continued to surf. Eventually my knee was fine and that was the end of it.
Walking back up the dunes I stopped to look at the waves and a guy asked to look at my Hess. He was talkative so I didn't have a chance to praise the board and include my usual mention of how I've never dinged one after 5+ years. I'm glad to because when he was done I noticed something. The rail I had hit with my foot and knee had split. It was about 4" long and split in two parallel lines. The glass had lifted but it looked like the wood below had rebounded back to it's original shape. I hope so because that will make the repair easier.
Not that I'll be doing the repair. I don't have epoxy resin, a work-space, or time to mess around with a repair on what is supposed to be my go-to board for this winter. I'm dropping it off with SF's #1 ding repair couple, the Martins, and hope to have it back before I need it again.
I tried to drop the board off the day I dinged it but they weren't in the shop. As I was walking to the shop gimping from my bruised foot and knee, I wondered how often they get someone gimping in with a ding on a board and a matching ding on the body.
