The new Epic V10 Sport has arrived in South Africa… But wait, it’s just one copy, brought back from the factory by Oscar Chalupsky who has spent the last three weeks in China.

(I’m told that the factory is in full production – with a current capacity of 100 boats per month. The first batches of production skis are destined for the US to fulfil a huge backlog of orders.)

On his way home, Oscar stopped in Hong Kong, where he gave a paddling clinic to twenty or so keen paddlers and showed off the V10 Sport.

The V10 Sport complete with new livery

James Shortis, a Hong Kong resident was there. “It was great to hear some tips from the ‘master’” he said, “Mind you, this was after we took him out and showed him the ‘bright lights’ of Hong Kong! (I'll let him fill you in on those details)…”

At the end of the clinic,” he added, “we were standing around discussing the relative merits of the different boats and speculating on their performance.”

After some discussion they decided on an informal “trial” that consisted of James taking each of several skis and sprinting out and back over a 250m course on flat water in an effort to establish the top speed of each ski. Clearly this was by no means a definitive study, but the results were interesting:

James said that he’d wanted to take his Fenn Mako out as well, but he was “too buggered and the weather was coming in.” Pity!

Oscar is trying out the V10 Sport in the Durban surf this week but is threatening to bring it to Cape Town on the weekend of 8/9 April – if that happens we’ll have a full report plus lots more photos on the site.  Stay tuned!

Comments (5)

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Mike
written by Guest, March 30, 2006

Excellent to hear more about the V10 Sport.
The flatwater trial is intriguing, in all fairness, the stronger qualities of skis such as the "Sport" and the XT won't be clear until conditions get rough.
Oscar and Greg bring us a V10 sport here in the US! The WaveChaser guys are having a "Championship" race on the famous (infamous?) San Francisco/Point Bonita course 4/29/06.

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AHHHH ....
written by Guest, March 31, 2006

Right on the edge of getting a decent seat of the pants comparison and put on hold "because the weather was coming in" 250 on flat water ? Mako must not have been ready on the spot.

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Trials
written by Guest, March 31, 2006

It was interesting to see the simple 250 meter trials. I thought I read that Oscar was going to do some testing of the V10 and V10 sport with a GPS and Heartrate monitor while in China. I would think that for skis longer distance time trials and various conditions would tell more.

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Franklin Dickinson
written by Guest, March 31, 2006

Greetings all

I love this site. Great information. I emailed Big Oscar several weeks ago about the two boats. He was kind enough to reply. It is unbelievable that Oscar (especially as busy as he is right now) would take the time to reply to a "Newbie" in Northeast Florida, USA. Oscar was able to get the skis moving much faster than the speeds stated about. After obtaining his permission, here is a quote from his email.

"Paddled today in the dirty river and had great feed back from both skis. I Used the V10Sport A 10 kg and the V10 B 19kg. I think the V10Sport can?t be more than a few % slower than the V10. The most impressive thing is the new rudder that is one hell of am improvement. I chased many Junks and rode the waves. The rudder is going to blow people away.

I found that on the test that I did I could get the V10 Sport to the same speed as the V10. I did 17.2 KPH at a top speed and I could cruise at about .5km per hours slower but I think I was tired. I also think that the weight made a huge difference. Mark paddled the V10 and couldn?t keep it up right but got into the Sport and was a master so the stability is at least 30%. Mark says about 25 to 30% more stable".

Again, great web site!

Franklin

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impressed
written by Guest, April 01, 2006

I have just paddled the V10Sport in the KIA marine surf ski series, it was a terrible side chop and I never fell off once and my mate who is the same standard as me fell off 30 times on his V10. I went much faster as I was upright the whole time.
Sean :-)

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