Believe you me, choosing this board was not an easy decision. Considering my mild obsession with the KT83, the new (and I would hope better) Quatro Pyramid could easily have taken it. But when I wrote down my criteria the Goya bubbled to the top. I wanted something that would plane early and work with 5.6 for Packery days. Something that would be as good as the Mistral for 4.7/4.2 bump and jump. And something that would rip in waist to head high Texas waves. For waves bigger and faster than that I have the custom.
I also wanted to consolidate and replace the 84 twin and Julies 95 freewave with one board. For a good while I thought I wanted something around 90 litres but having demoed a couple of boards in that size in Brazil and Maui it became clear that 80 to 84L was the perfect size range for me.
Here it is standing between my trusty twin fin and custom:
Looks pretty huh? Dimensionally it is very similar to the Mistral. Whilst quoted as longer and narrower, it is actually a tiny bit shorter than the Mistral.
Coincidentally, they are both Brawzinho models. Cool huh? But it looks to me like Goya played it smart and used a removable sticker for theirs. You never know when a better deal might come along.
I found the positioning of the footstraps and mast track quite interesting and drew some horizontal lines to highlight the differences. Everything is so much further forward on the Mistral. No wonder the nose would dive faster than an Italian footballer. I'm hoping the rearward position of the straps on the Goya will make landing back loops easier.
The leading edge of the rear fins is in the middle of the back strap, which is pretty standard I think.
Unless you have a custom...
I am desperate to take it for a spin but aside from one weekend in January, I have barely sailed in months. Come on wind! Right now all I can do is admire the boards design features and wait for some decent wind.
My wife Julie thinks I get too 'into' my windsurfing equipment. I told her she was being ridiculous, but she claimed to have photographic evidence. The photos don't show anything. I'm perfectly normal...
