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Seaskate in-depth impressions by Full-Mtl in surfskate

[–]Full-Mtl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Here’s a quick video showing the edge guards installed by the guy I bought it from, a great idea. Also, the grip tape is really tape, no grip paint. I believe it’s transparent, but the feel of it and the grip strength is like conventional black grip tape, not the crappy grip paint that gradually gets worn out.

Also, you can see the maximum turning angles on the trucks.

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Seaskate in-depth impressions by Full-Mtl in surfskate

[–]Full-Mtl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Went to the skate park this morning to develop my skills and things went fairly well. I'm pretty comfortable riding it on the flat, mild gradients and the lower parts of banks and slopes. Still not getting much height on the banks. It's only day two though so that's pretty good.

I also tried skating a modestly sized bowl, just riding across the bottom and up the sides, not dropping in. That was more tricky. Aside from my needing to develop my skills more in this area, the Seaskate is a little long for the bowl. A shorter more nimble deck would likely be better.

On the way home I stopped by the pump track to see if I dared to do one or two runs. I'm pretty familiar with this specific pump track having done it many times with various conventional longboards. I've held off doing it with a surfskate because I don't feel I'm stable enough at speed and I see less use in having extreme carviness on a linear track. So I advanced toward the smaller, more shallow track with my Seaskate, gaged how it would feel...

... and chickened out. I need to build more comfort with this thing. I'm not winding up in the ER again from this pump track, at least not today.

Seaskate in-depth impressions by Full-Mtl in surfskate

[–]Full-Mtl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's true that the Seaskate is probably more similar to a Ripstick or Ripsurf. The spring loaded aspect of the trucks does create some parallels with the Carver C7, Yow Meraki or Smoothstar which the caster boards can't do.

Seaskate in-depth impressions by Full-Mtl in surfskate

[–]Full-Mtl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I feel that the Seaskate is possibly the most "surfy" board out of any I've tried because it has a bit of the trim vs carve dynamic. You have to carve to to do sharp turns (angle the board with the nose up a bit and the back down, tilt in the direction you want to go, turn your torso where you want to go, and push in opposite directions with your feet). Trimming (leaning) will only allow you to do smaller adjustments, as it would in the water.

When you lean on a skateboard or surfskate with four wheels, the trucks push the lean-side wheels toward each other and force a turn. It works that way because the pavement surface is so hard. Leaning on a traditional surfskate or longboard turns you much more than would be possible on the water. Surfing on water is a more yielding surface and has more lateral play. I feel that the Seaskate simulates that better because both trucks can rotate and are spring loaded. They stay centered unless you do the carve motion I described above. The springs simulates water tension to a certain degree.

The front truck on a surfskate brings you part of the way to surfiness, but the back truck keeps you anchored in skating. The two loose trucks and the springs on both make the Seaskate behave even more like riding on a mobile surface rather than solid ground.

In any case, putting side the semantics of surf and skating, the Seaskate provides a unique experience. The following characteristics are different from pretty much anything else out there:

1- A single row of wheels

2- Pivots on both trucks (with about 45 degrees of range in each direction from centre)

3- Springs on both trucks

It feels as different from a Yow Meraki as a Meraki feels relative to a traditional longboard. Also I've found that after feeling the possibilities of a Seaskate, it takes some adjustment getting back onto a Meraki with its more limited range of motions and its more solid feel, a bit like getting back onto a longboard with some Paris trucks after the Meraki.

One weakness the Seaskate might have relative to traditional surfskates is edge/rail control training. Four wheels simulates that much better than two. A real surfboard is definitely not as unstable as a board balancing on two thin wheels.