My name is Tobias Bodin from Stockholm – Sweden, a dedicated windsurfer during the water season and heavily addicted to iceboarding during the winter season. Claes at Boardtests asked me to give you my thoughts and ideas about iceboarding Equipment.
Tobias Bodin, Stockholm – Sweden – Photo: Claes Nilsson Kvick
Iceboard Sharp4
Our boards did perform really well last season so I will not change so much on them. I have constructed new brackets to attach the blades to the bridges. Asking around, the bridges, brackets and blades are the most difficult details when it comes to a iceboard DIY project. Offering a Bridge, bracket and blade solution will allow people who want to build their own iceboard to cut the corners. I have two basic iceboard designs:
Iceboard for speed
The dimension of the Speed board: 1500mm with 1400mm between the truck centers and the mast foot 1500 mm from the front truck. Truckarna (180mm) has 44 grade angle and has 98a bushings. The front blades are 350x80x4mm and the back blades are 450x80x4mm. The grinding has a angle of 85 degrees and a radius of about 30m or 1mm air in front and back.
Sharp4 Iceboards – Photo: Tobias Bodin
Iceboard for Short Track Slalom (STS)
The dimensions of the Slalom board: 1500mm with 1300mm between the trucks and the mast foot 100mm from the front truck. The trucks have an angle of 50 degrees are equipped with 92 (bushings) in the front and 98 in the back. The front blades has dimensions 300x80x4mm and the back blades 350x80x4mm. the slalom board blades are made of 3mm titanium.
The world’s lightest Iceboard? – Carbon Art
The idea was that this board would start fast and give me acceleration on the Short Track Slalom (STS) track competitions. The weight of the carbon board, including loads of reinforcement, landed on 6.7kg. As planned the carbon board became a really fast starter and gave me very good acceleration up to a certain wind speed. But in some wind speeds on the STS track I’m not sure that I experience any advantages regarding the lightweight.
Tobias carbon iceboard 6.7 kg – Photo: Tobias Bodin
Iceboard Sails – No cam or Cambers
For this year I thought I would try some new ideas regarding my sail line. I´ve been thinking back and forth if I will use wave sails or camber sails. When you start windsurfing on ice you might think that your favourite sails from the water season would work as well on ice, this is only partly true. Small cambered race sails has proven to work really well, just look at our world champion 2015 Stefan Söderlund who scored second place in course race and first place in short track slalom with his MauiSail TR6 5.5. The advantage of full race sail on ice is that they are pretty good allrounders, great for slalom and speed but you will also be able to use them for freeride and freestyle as well.
Iceboard speed – My personal record was set with a wave sail
My personal record sail is Sail Loft Curve 4.0 from 2008 hitting 47 knots on a small lake north of Stockholm with start and stop within approx. 1 000 m. I know the curve very well since I use the Curve on water as well. As a compliment to the curve I would like to try a cambered sail in the same size but it’s hard to find slalom sails as small as 4.0 sqm.
Tobias Bodin on Ältasjön south of Stockholm – Photo: Jan Herrlin
Iceboard sails for course racing
For light wind sailing I use my Mauisails Blaze 7.5, I will keep it, but I’m convinced that the Sail Loft traction from -08 will be the best light wind sail the question is whether it is better when it comes to upwind performance on a course race track. That remains to be seen. I will also experiment with stiffer masts to obtain a tighter leech.
My experience from last year course races was that its was very hard to hang on to the best guys with my Mauisails Blaze 7.5, I would say that when it comes to course race a full on race sail is the way to go.
Tobias Bodin on the tremendous ice of Valentunasjön, Stockholm – Sweden – Photo: Claes Nilsson Kvick
This is my iceboarding sail line for this season:
Sail Loft Curve 4.0, 2008 – Wave sail
Severne overdrive 5.6, 2015 with RDM 400 – Cambered slalom sail
MauiSails TR9 6.6, 2013 (need new mast SDM 430) – Cambered slalom sail
MauiSails Blaze 7.5, 2012 – Cambered (2 cam) freerace sail
Iceboard sails – On my wish list:
MauiSail TR8 7.6 – Cambered slalom sail
or preferably a;
Sail Loft traction 7.5 – Light wind 2 cam sail
Tobias Bodin / Sharp4 iceboards
