{"id":21854,"date":"2016-05-06T14:12:41","date_gmt":"2016-05-06T13:12:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/?p=21854"},"modified":"2016-05-06T14:12:41","modified_gmt":"2016-05-06T13:12:41","slug":"election-day-blue-lagoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/2016\/05\/election-day-blue-lagoon\/","title":{"rendered":"Election Day at the Blue Lagoon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Morgan’s school was closed once again for polling on Thursday. So, as is now customary on election days we spent the day at the Blue Lagoon water park<\/a> in Pembrokeshire with Morgan and two of his friends, Tom and James.<\/p>\n

I was up early as usual and was going to go for a bike ride, but on my early morning walk along the beach the surf was looking good so I decided to try out my new stand-up paddle board instead. Although brand new, it’s actually a direct replacement for my Starboard WindSUP Blend 11’2″<\/a> as my old one snapped<\/a> and has since been replaced by Starboard with a new one under warranty. I hadn’t yet had chance to use it though, so after my walk, I got changed and headed over to the beach.<\/p>\n

\"Swell<\/a>

Swell Morning<\/p><\/div>\n

Snapped SUP fin<\/h2>\n

The waves were indeed nice so I paddled out through them, getting used once again to the feel of stand up paddle boarding. I then tried to catch a wave, just got on it but fell off. As I did, the board tipped over and as I went to turn it back up the right way I noticed that the fin was hanging off. I thought at first that I must have neglected to tighten the screw on it properly, but on closer inspection the fin itself had snapped. It had broken right across the base, so that put an end to my SUP session for the day.<\/p>\n

Back at home I inspected the fin and the base is only 4mm think in some places due to the fact that the Starboard logo is engraved into the fin on both sides. This creates a weak point which is right where the fin has snapped. Quite how or why it snapped I don’t know though as I hadn’t done anything on the board when it happened so I can only assume that it was snapped before hand but hadn’t quite come apart. I’ve been told that a weak point is built into the fin by design so that it does snap if it hits anything. Whilst I believe that, I think the weak point is supposed to be the section that the screw goes though, not where the Starboard engraving is and therefore not where the fin snapped. I’ve got loads fins of the same design, all of which have a\u00a0thinner section of base through which the screw goes and therefore all of which have such a weakness. However, I’ve never snapped a fin before despite hitting things and running aground at speed on a windsurf board. In fact I’ve never broken anything in this manner except ankles, knees and teeth! I don’t know why this fin was already broken where it was, but \u00a0I don’t seem to be having much luck with my Starboard kit at the moment. At least I still have the fin from the old board though so I can use that one for now. I have sent Starboard a photo of the snapped fin to see what they say, but have yet to hear back from them.<\/p>\n\n\t\t