I have a 135, 95 and 85 liter board, I sail on Michigan and smaller lakes so want to know how often other people sail lower than 95 liter on the big lake?

Never!
My smallest is 109 to carry my 190lb at a ratio of 1.74 lb/liter, which keeps me buoyant, just in case!

I'm at 175 pounds, the 85 liter board sinks on me, the 95 can support me and get me through the lulls and get me home. The last thing I want to do is swim my board in from out on the big lake, way too challenging for me.

My Lake Michigan board is a Quattro 95lt Freestyle wave. I weigh in the 190's. Typically run a pretty big fin on it to help plane up quicker and fight against shore current. I run sails from 4.2 to 6.8 if the wind is filled in. If its light on the inside or gusty i will ride a 115lt Fanatic Blast. In the past i also rode a 78lt wave board on super gnarly days but after a few times comparing them against another I found no benefit from the smaller board. The Quattro never felt like too much board and I found it a better performer considering Lake Michigan unique conditions.

Lake Michigan is a quirky place to sail... conditions can vary so much.
If it's solid 5.8 wind with waves I will ride the Evo 92, if it's flat the JP102 is faster and more fun.
When it gets to 5.3 or 4.7 the Quad/Cube 90 is a dream. (On the water this feels like it might be ~85 liters)
Haven't yet ridden the Thruster 82. (I used to ride an F2 Wave 254 in 5.5 and below)



I always take my SUP board (10'6" Fanatic Fly) which is great with the 5.8 in waves and very light wind.
Has saved many trips to the beach from being skunked!
Andrew (156 lbs)

I just caught Greg's "a ratio of 1.74 lb/liter," comment. So that is why Andrew at 156 can sail anything down to 89 liters and still be buoyant. I guess then it makes my comment be that most people don't step outside that comfort zone of still floating on top of that board if the wind drops.

Chris wrote:
Exactly! I had smaller than my 109 but I couldn't uphaul the damn thing when the wind dropped and I'm in the water. I got caught a few times in that situation. The swim back is no fun. I said to myself that I wouldn't get caught like that again; so every board I have is now more or less buoyant for me.

The wind dying suddenly enough to not even slog in is very, very rare on this side of the state. I can only remember it happening once in the mid nineties while on a custom Shuller 8.6. It was during my early days of high wind wave sailing and couldn't believe everyone had gone in. Didn't they want to see the sunset? Swam in the dark, got home late. It was worth the memory.

I agree that this really needs to be normalized based on the rider's weight! I definitely ride a slightly bigger board on Lake Michigan that I would ride in equivalent winds on an inland lake unless it's 4.7 or windier.

All of my boards are under 95L. For most of the last 5 years, my biggest board has been an 84 L FSW, which worked great for for all inland days and most Lake Michigan days. I am a touch under 160 lbs, so the 84 has about 10 L of positive float for me. If I could only have one board, it would be that 84.

But, to be fair, I would struggle a bit on Lake Michigan days with nice waves, a strong rip, and lightish wind. I have since gotten a 90L FSW which definitely helps me on the lighter days. It is a really floaty and quick-to-plane board at my weight. (But not nearly as loose in the turns)

My biggest struggle with the larger boards is getting a smooth front-side bottom turn--if I'm on one of my bigger boards (90 or 84) I will run the smallest fins I can get away with (typically with a thruster set-up) to help the frontside turning. I tend to think about boards more in terms of width than volume, but a little extra float can be super helpful on the big lake.

My quiver is 90 L FSW, 84 L FSW, and 75 L wave board and I sail primarily on Lake Michigan now.

I think we should be due for some big NE days in the near future!

In my book 80+ liters boards correspond to 3-4 m sails for my ever slowly increasing weight /at 180lbs now/ in 40+ mph winds. This kind of wind strength is extremely rare around here especially in sailable temperatures and also I’m too old and unconditioned for that much brutality anyway. That’s why my smallest sail is 4.2 and so rarely used that I don’t remember when was the last time anymore . You may be asking yourself why then did I buy and 86L Kode Freewave several years ago? Well, the short answer is -naivety. The long story is that I have sold an older model 93L JP FSW whose shape I didn’t like for being longer then my freeride board with most of the volume forward and thinned out tail that made it always seem like it was going nose up .



It was between the seasons 2014-15 I believe and there was nothing else decent used for sale besides a few 2012 86l Starboard Kode by a store in Hood River, OR. They claimed that those are boards from their rental fleet in Brazil and that’s why they had numbers painted on them and nose protectors. I had far less experience back then but plenty of confidence coupled with an overdose of wishful thinking so I bought one. While I’m typing this I can’t stop wondering how was I able to sail an 86L board as much as I did?! Sure I was 165 lbs back then and the season might have been windier , I don’t know, but I did sail it somehow. It wasn’t easy as you may have guessed. I got a cracked rib or two and a broken boom that year.
Fast forward to this day and the diabolical Kode 86 is still well and has a new owner of very recently-Chris I have 4 boards in total and I was in a process of moving to a new home and I just had to get rid of useless staff , so I took it to Clinton and literally forced it on Chris because he’s the only one of my windsurfing friends that has any prospect of ever using it /not that he has as far as I know, but it’s not my problem anymore/.
So this is my story of the love affair that I had with an undersized board-one of the equipment buying mistakes that I made. The other bigger and much costlier mistakes were the oversized gear that I bought for light wind-long gone for good also. Now I have 4 boards all from Starboard /WindSUP including/ perfectly paired with couple of sails each with my most used this last couple of years being the Kode 103/ Revo 5.7 combo-a combination that I should have acquired very early on but I did last. So my quiver looks like that now:
*5-10mph Windsup Starboard Converse 9’ +Revo 5.7
*10-20mph Starboard AtomIQ 110 /75cm wide/ + Retro 7.5 and 6.5
*20-30mph Starboard Kode 103+Revo 5.7 and 5.2
*30-40mph Starboard Kode 94+Revo 4.7 and 4.2
Of course the wind numbers are relative and there is overlapping all the time, but overall I’m finally very happy with my equipment after years of experimenting and some really bad choices like the 86.

Ady, I did sail that board once and then it's been in my garage ever since. It didn't carve well, felt cumbersome for lack of a better word. Probably due to the width, it feels a lot like the 103 FLOW which I am not fond of sailing either but I had to get something on water since my 266 custom got takin out. If anyone is wanting the Flow or Kode board let me know, Jake?

Wendell G. wrote:
True: I never got caught having to swim back on Lake Michigan. But on Lake Winnebago, it is not uncommon to enjoy 20-25kn to see it drop below 10kn in a matter of minutes while out in the middle one or two miles away from shore. Not fun.