Saturday, January 3, 2009

Board Bag review

Just before Xmas, I went to my storage room to pick up some luggage and noticed how beat up was my FCS surf bag. I have had couple of friends asking me for advices on how to prevent any damages to their board when they are gonna surf abroad.
-buy a bag that is 6-8 inches longer than your longest board
-remove wax from boards, and fins
-use foam pipe insulation to protect rails, you can also cut them in half and place them on top and bottom for additional protection

-Finally put clothes on nose and tails, between surfboards for additional protection

Now about surfbags selection, after trying both conventional and wheeled bags, the latest one are worth the extra money. The following three have similar features such as corrosion free zipper, 600D polyester, rubber handle, polyurethane wheels, internal pocket for fins, etc..

I am going to review three bags:
-Dakine: World Traveler (4 boards, $225), it has a solid construction but I have found nothing innovative about the bag.
-Komunity: Delta Wheeled Coffin (4 boards, $220), the skid pad is better than dakine and similar to FCS, the handles are comfortable and the one for the shoulder is well thought but I would have like to see a better construction for extra comfort as it can be a big pain to carry.
Overall I prefer this bag over the Dakine


-FCS: Triple Wheelie (5 boards, $240).
I found this bag to be innovative and this is the one I would purchase. Unlike the two other bags, the wheels are placed on the rails, which makes it the easiest bag to carry in busy airport. Just make sure you protect the rails, as an impact from the top will not only damage the rail but could damage up to five boards.
Instead of having a pad separating each board, FCS offers one literunner single board bag, which is the best feature of this bag, that is a bit more expensive than the other two.
(the 7 boards version at $280, has two literunner).

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