more "universal" powder board

I typically ski and ride 50 or so days a year and ride deep powder
easily
on
a 160 cm board. I see very few riders of any merit riding boards over
168
at any weight and super long boards languish in the shops because no-one
wants them.

My experience has been that most longboard fans are hard booters... myself
included. More often that not hardbooters are on something longer than
168.
Many hardbooters use soft boots in powder, and are often on something
longer
than 168 - everything from big Customs and Fastbacks to swallowtails to
Tanker 200s.


Although I should admit... out of my current quiver, my shortest board is
probably my easiest to ride in powder. This doesn't surprise me because I
estimate that it also has the most surface area, it's a lot wider than the
rest. I don't have the time or energy to measure and calculate the exact
surface areas of all my boards, but I'll estimate my simply taking length *
waist width:

Donek Wide 161: 161 * 26 = 4186 cm^2
Donek Incline 168: 168 * 24 = 4032 cm^2
Donek Axis 172: 172 * 21.5 = 3698 cm^2
Coiler PR 184: 184 * 18.5 = 3404 cm^2

Yeah the estimate has some error in it but you get the picture.

I do intend to get something more powder oriented... I have my eye on the
OSin 4807 178 - readily available new on eBay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WD1V

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WD1V

The second link is more expensive, however I list it because I personally
know two folks who bought boards from this seller and had good experiences.

Mike T