Review: Daiwa Coastal TW 80HL

The Daiwa Coastal TW 80 is designed for inshore saltwater use. The sealed drag and reduced bearing count are supposed to make it less susceptible to water intrusion and bearing failure over time, and multiple drain ports should allow any water that does infiltrate the body to escape easier. Magnetic Cast control with 20 settings and the t-wing system allow for a wider (and lighter) range of baits to be casted with fewer backlashes and minimal resistance. 11lbs of max drag, and a extra long handle (for an 80 size bait caster) give this reel its cranking power. Overall, all the design features point to a reel made to cast a range of small-medium baits, in salty environments, to “smaller” fish. $249 from tacklewarehouse.com

Now to my review. I purchased this reel with one fish in mind: spotted bay bass. I fish spotties 100+ days per year, on my boat, in both San Diego and Mission bay, with the occasional jaunt elsewhere in Socal. In an effort to cover more water, and reduce casting fatigue, I recently upgraded my workhorse rod to a Phenix Black Diamond 906L (9’, fast action, custom wrapped, review to come soon!), and wanted a reel to match the improved performance. Having owned and fished several other Daiwas, I bought into this reel, as it seemed familiar and purpose designed for my typical load case: 1/4-1/2 oz lures, with low diameter braid, and 6lb leaders, for targets mostly under 5lbs in the salt. Typical bay-bassin’.

I purchased the 80HL model; Left handle, 7.1:1 ratio. The reel arrived and right away you can tell the form factor is smaller than my previous workhorse, the tatula ct. For sure easier to palm. the free spool and t-wing were smooth, and out of the box the drag was buttery, with a decent number of clicks (8-12) to start to get some solid drag. Spooled up with seaguar tactx 20lb braid, and a 6lb flouro leader. With the magnetic cast control off, the spool never had that forever spin. I did not do any pre-fishing maintenance (oiling, greasing, etc.). Now to the fishing!

The reel worked well out of the box. Casting 1/4 oz owner ultraheads with 3” AA curly tail shrimps (my go-to spotty bait), I was able to get 50+yard casts pretty easily, and the magnetic cast control compensated for the change in wind speed and direction well, although it was very hard to turn. The drag holds nice and tight for good hooksets, and is smooth, even when cranked up toward max. The extra long handle cranked up 1/4lb spotties through 5lb halibut with ease, and the drag adjustment is easy/reliable to access (you have to be able to drop it down 25% when a halibut gets to the boat and makes its final run, and an adjust of 4 clicks does it well; some reels require far to many turn to get an appreciable change, others a couple clicks, and you have no drag). The reel was fishing well, and always rinsed with freshwater.

3 months in: The reel is starting show wear, internally. I did the first service, (after 20-30ish sessions) because it sounded like it absolutely needed it. The main spool bearing was screaming like a banshee on casts, and the drag was loosing its smoothness on startup. No other problems were present. I did a 95% teardown of the reel (everything taken apart except for taking the bearings themselves apart) and found a few things:

1. the reel was not draining well. there was visible evidence where water was gathering and drying/oxidizing, both in the reel body on some components like the main gear, and in the left spool bearing cup.

2. the cast control wheel was still tight and no adjustment of the side plate screw would help

3. the reel was generally pretty dry of grease/oil

The reel was cleaned, all parts lubricated, the internal body and frame coated with a light sheen of cals grease, and the drag greased and re-assmebled. all bearings were drip lubricated until they ran clear with clenzoil. Back and ready for more fishing. The service helped and the bearings quieted down. everything was smooth (as it was before), and the start up drag back to normal. the reel was back to fishing well, and cast distance maintained. From this point on, the worm was oiled regularly, and the whole reel was always rinsed after each session, just as it was before.

11 months in, the reel is still fishing good/not great, and has landed 100’s of bass. the spool still does not like to spin forever (the bearings never quite feel broken in); I dont feel like it sacrifices casting distance, but if you turn the cast control off and just drop your bait, it feels like the bait should be falling faster. the ergonomics are great (palmability, drag adjustment, handle length), except for the cast control adjustment, the ridges need to be deeper if its going to be that hard to turn. I am less impressed with the draining. Final key points:

1. good ergonomics in an purpose designed reel for inshore fishing

2. great drag range and adjustability (having to service and grease a drag is part of maintenance, I can’t ding Daiwa for that)

3. just OK saltwater resilience despite being purpose designed for inshore fishing

While I am not going to sell the reel, I dont think I would buy another. I dont think the casting/fishing performance is $110 better than my tatula ct’s ($139 at tacklewarehouse.com), and it is clear it requires just as much maintenance to operate in saltwater as my tatula ct’s. Save your dollars for grease, and oil; youre going to need to buy them anyways!

Principles of Design Part 1

Part 1: Misinformation, Misnomers, and Imitation

Misinformation

Surfboards are simple vehicles. They have no moving parts, but instead use their outline as a means to interact with fluids. That stated, they interact with the same principles of fluid dynamics as any other vehicle moving through or on a fluid medium, however, due to their small size, low mass, and low velocity, the relative effects are very small compared to something like a 737 aircraft (an aerospace comparison often drawn in surf marketing), or even an ocean going ship. For example:

A winglet on a modern 737-800 may contribute to 0.5% reduction in wingtip vortex drag and result in .0025% increase in speed (speed is a square of the reduction in drag). .5% x .5% x 500mph= 1.25 mph increase in speed at the same relative thrust. If flying 3000 miles across the US, then the reduction in time= [3000mi/ 500mph]-[(3000mi/ (500mph+1.25mph)]=.015 hours x 365 days a year= 5.47 hours saved in flying per year. Which in fuel may equate to thousands of dollars (or almost a “free” flight across the country, nearly 3000 more miles of range at 500mph!).

If we apply the same principle to say, the wingtips on a Futures fin elevon quad, you can see the effect is much smaller:

An elevon quad may contribute to 0.5% reduction in fin-tip vortex drag and result in .0025% increase in speed (speed is a square of the reduction in drag). .5% x .5% x 15mph (or 440 yards per minute an average surfer average speed)= 1.1 yards per minute increase in speed at the same relative thrust. If flying across a wave 440 yards long (1/4 mile) at rincon, then the reduction in time= [440yd/ 440ypm]-[(440yd/ (440ypm+1.1ypm)]=.003 minutes saved. .003 minutes x 60 seconds per minute= .18 seconds faster you will traverse that wave. In others words, if you got 10 perfect, 440 yard waves in a session, did no turns or maneuvers, your total ride time would be 9 minutes 58.2 seconds instead of 10 minutes. If you had a session like that 365 days per year, you would be 657 seconds or 10 minutes 57 seconds faster.

This comparison can be used to describe many interactions surfboards have with fluids. Are those interactions (fluid dynamics) present? Yes! Are they going to make a big enough of a difference to notice? No!

The same principles of buoyancy, lift, fluid adhesion and delamination, solid and digital wings, displacement, etc. all apply, BUT! Some are far more affective to your surfing than others. Additionally, drawing comparisons between surfboards and aerospace, mass transit vehicles, ships, whales and dolphins, etc., is not really a comparison at all. So stop using things that are orders of magnitude bigger than you and your surfboard (and your surfboards time in the water) to make design and purchasing decisions.

Misnomers

All surfboards have a “hull”. Hulls are simply the outermost layer of a waterborne vessel that contact and interacts with surrounding liquid fluids. In other words, if it floats or submerges itself, it has a hull. Surfboards certainly fall into this category. Additionally, all surfboards are both displacement hulls and planing hulls. Both?! Yes! ALL surfboards work on displacement principles when you are paddling. ALL surfboards work on planing principles when you are up and surfing. To call any particular type of surfboard a “displacement hull” is really a misnomer. Lets look deeper:

A true displacement hull functions by effectively parting the water. As it travels in its primary direction of travel, the contours of the hull split and move the water around it. As such, the entire length of the hull of the vessel at or above the waterline is at all times in contact with the water at all times. Think of the titanic. Think of an aircraft carrier. Think of a cargo ship. The hull of all these vehicles has a fine entry, a parabolic plan at the waterline, and is in contact with the water, tip to tail, at all times. As the speed of displacement hull increases, the length of the bow wave created grows in length. When the lengths of this wave is equal to the length of the hull, the vessel has reached “hull speed”; overcoming hull speed with a displacement hull requires a larger amount of thrust and as speed increase, the draft, or depth of the hull actually increases. This means that the hull sinks deeper as speed increases. Not exactly desirable in your surfing. Think about your surfboard when paddling now: shortboards are often fully submerged, and longboards often “glide” over the surface of the water with the entirety of their shape in contact with the water. Both displacing water!

This contrasts greatly with the planing hull which we will look at next:

Planing hulls are more often associated with higher speed applications and rely instead on utilizing the relative surface tension and compression of water, to result in a balanced net force at speed to travel with the majority of the hull well above the surface of the water. Think of a speed boat, or a skipping stone. As long as the vessel is traveling in its primary direction of travel, at a high enough speed, the vessel will momentarily compress the water beneath a small water plane (significantly smaller than the plan view at the waterline), and the force exerted back by the compressed water will be enough to maintain a vertical equilibrium. Of course your surfboard has no propeller, but the principle is the same. The angle of attack of the water in a wave, relative the bottom surface of a surfboard, creates the same phenomena, no matter what the bottom contour of the surfboard is. In shortboards, this always very apparent while up and riding, as the tail of the board is the only part of the board engaged with the wave. In longboards, while it may seem like at times the board is working on displacement principles, the board is in fact relying entirely on the same planing principles the shortboard utilizes. Even the most deeply vee’d boards (often referred to as displacement hulls) cannot displace water fast enough to cancel the compression and coincident expansion of water beneath the board. If it could truly displace water that well, your mass, coupled with the acceleration of gravity, woud result in downward velocity so large, the ENTIRE board would immediately plunge to the bottom of the wave, and then continue to submerge, beneath the water until a kinetic equilibrium was reached via speed and buoyancy (hull speed).

All boards rely on planing to keep you up and riding on the face of the wave. If your speed drops, the board sinks, your forward speed slows and the wave continues on without you. Even on “displacement hulls”. Besides, a real displacement hull would broach and dive irrecoverably, in every wave, due to the unbalanced coanda effect as relative speed increases on only one side of the vessel.

Imitation

It has all been done before. 0, 1,2,3, 4, 5, 6 fins. Diamond, pin, thumb, round, squash tail. Long, short, midlengths. Chop nose, twin nose, round nose. Wings, bumps, hips. Fortunately, nobody has a patent on surfboard designs and every shaper has at least dabbled with every design feature you can think of. Some have executed it better than others. Some have gotten lucky and set a trend. Others rode the coattails and then surpassed the individuals they were following. The key as a board rider and shaper is not to get sucked into people telling you this or that imitation of someone else’s magic board is right for you. Find what works for you, find a shaper that is willing to work with you, and develop your skills together. More people have stagnated their surfing because they bought Hypto Krypto’s, than have developed their surfing and progressed because they actually talked to a shaper and asked what they would recommend. Do not try to dance to the beat of someone elses drum just because it is popular or it looks good. You might not be doing yourself any favors.

Finally, different waves need different boards. When possible, don’t compromise. Equip yourself properly. You should strive to have 4-6 dialed-in boards to cover yourself in everything from 1-15ft. you do not have to amass them all at once (in fact I would recommend against doing that), but keeping them current to your height/weight/athletic ability is important. You will find that you will surf more often, in more conditions, and progress more quickly, if you have the tools be comfortable in the water. The one board quiver is more often a roadblock than a feature.

Lake Arrowhead

I recently had to go to the lake arrowhead UCLA conference center for a class. It was tough because I was literally stuck in a classroom like 8 hours of the day and I couldn't sneak away for more than 45 minutes at a time but I did manage to get some fishing time in. The lake itself was beautiful and there might be no better time to be in mountains than late spring (not to hot/not too cold) but it was interesting fishing a "private" lake. I was not allowed to fish from shore, but I could fish from the conference center docks. All the security guards wanted to check my ALA card (I don't have one) but they could not do anything to stop me from getting to the UCLA property. And all the locals seemed more concerned with making sure I was there "legally" than just enjoying the lake. What a backwards place.

During lunch break and after dinner I did manage to lose 3 small mouth bass. They were wily ones...all three managed to spit the hook on their first jump...I should've kept the rod tip lower. On the final morning I woke up early and fished a little more. Managed to land one good sized rainbow. I released it after the photo. All fish (including the smallmouth) ate a #8 wooly bugger (black hackle/tail and dark brown body) on the drop-shot.  

In recent years I know that "warm-water species" fly fishing has been gaining steam, but here in California people still stick to all the usual methods for targeting bass, carp, and others. Like most outdoor trends, we are the last to pick up on it. Anyways, I think it can be more than just novelty to fish these species on the fly. The presentation is much more subtle and at least for the time being, you are offering them items they haven't seen before. this cant last forever of course but its worth a go for sure.