Now I’m really pissed. Only rode the board twice. No problems on the first go out, hardly caught anything in very big storm surf. Surfed it yesterday in 3 ft. offshores and it rode great. Today I notice silver dollar size round cracks where my back foot was? Shit, I was wearing 3mm booties. You’d think that would soften any hard foot action. Now I understand where the surftech stuff filled a market. I finally find a board that works like a dream and I’m already thinking about the next one because this one is showing problems after two go outs. No knees, no head into the board, just simple pop ups in 3-4 ft. surf. I used to get all my boards from Greg Loehr 15 years ago. Boards held up great with the epoxy resin but I never compensated for the extra float when I ordered them so I stupidly gave them up rather than reduce my dimensions. I’m definitely going back to epoxy resin for my next board. I’m tired of having to fix boards every couple of surfs.
Hard to say what it is. There are lots of threads here on paddling. One it particular noted that sitting deeper in the water engaged the energy. If you look at a cross section of a wave and the circular enery within, I guess you could make a case for sitting deeper in the water. I also think that the short length allows the board to rotate more quickly from the angled position as you sit before paddling. That and the Jam method works so much better on a shorter board. I am a very strong swimmer and have wondered up until now why that didn’t translate into better catching. Life is good, I catching waves.
I prefer shortboards
the shorter the better as long as you can paddle them out without getting stuck pounded inside
nose rocker is over rated and is only pertinent if the length is too big for the wave face. boards should be appropriately sized to fit the size and type of curve your facing on the drop other wise you havve to adjust your angle of attack.
for paddling and taking the drop you really need to be concerned about tail rocker cause you can fix the pearling with a slight nose flip at the tip.
straight ahead paddling in is also over rated
it works best for SUPs and canoes
very hard to do compared to sitting deep and popping in.
even those that look like they are paddling in are using a trick or two if you really break it down
the problem for most folks is finding themselves stuck in that midlength never never land for floatation needs.
I think you need to either go real long to paddle in or short to pop in.
watch someone try to paddle in and you’ll never see them catch the wave at the base or mid height of a wave but instead end up drifting all the way up to the top before releasing into the take off. Its almost as if they end up “catching up” to the wave instead of being ahead of it. I think this is because of the circular occillation that occurs in breaking wave the cclassic cork in a wave tank study.
you probably exert way less physical energy in the long run doing the jam/pop take off than anything else with almost the same result i bet. Remember if you really forced yourself too you could find a way to ride a door and make it work given enough practice and determination.I’ve seen one arm surfers pop in. if you think about it its just timing thats all either way.
length and badly positioned width has many enemies it must face outside of the bottom turn and trim. going shorter gives you more control getting pitched, pulling in, or whipping it around before shooting too far up or out on the face.
one neat test is to figure out your comfort level sitting in between sets
is it knee deep
or are you a hipster?
do you sink to your belly button
or is it nipple level that you prefer to sit
“I keep thinking I should stay small and work with rocker and shape more than length”
-that’s the ticket
experiment and do it in epoxy
Well I guess I'm close enough - 55 in December? 6' X 200 lbs. Not exactly in my prime fitness-wise. I have a few chronic aches and pains that go along with various injuries but nothing that qualifies as a true disability...
A sliced right triceps (surf related and unrepaired) has kept me from paddling efficiently for the past 35 years. It's the muscle that enables you to pull downward through the water while paddling. A right hip that has been acting up isn't the greatest thing for popping up on late steep take offs. The left shoulder clicks, pops and says "ouch" once in awhile. My reflexes are slower and my balance is worse than when I was younger. Also, plain and simple, I don't surf as much as I used to.
I ride a lot of things... from inflatable surf mats to bellyboards to giant longboards to bodysurfing. I'm just not much in to the shortboard/hybrid thing.
So much depends on the venue. It is more important for me to be out there when there are good waves rather than what particular craft I'm riding. In good waves a LOT of different surfcraft work just fine. There are spots that are very shifty and there are spots that are like dropping a nickel in the slot every time a set comes in. Obviously a board that paddles fast is at an advantage in shifty surf. You can't really ride 'em if you can't catch 'em? For those who try to tell me that their 5'10" fish paddles like a longboard? Whatever... depends on the longboard I suppose.
Duck diving means nothing to me. I generally push the tail down and frog leg kick over small walls of white water. If I can't do that, I turn turtle, or bail and hope my leash holds.
'High performance' surfing is a relative thing. I mean there are pro guys (think Tom Curren/Kelly Slater) and there are the rest of us. For the rest of us, does 'high performance' even count? I'm happy to still be out there. I try to catch the good ones in the right place at the right time but that too is relative. For me, 'the right place at the right time' means I can hopefully make the take off and make the wave. All else is of secondary importance. Repeated efforts at showing off that result in falling off aren't relevant.
A recent session during which the waves were marginal, I missed a few waves. Several times as I stopped paddling, pelicans dive-bombed directly in front of my board. I must have been chasing schools of bait fish. It happened repeatedly... those pelicans and I made quite the team. A few dolphins swam by but I was about as interesting as a slug to them. They were a thrill nevertheless. Three days ago the local temperatures were above 90 and we had nice offshore winds with head high waves. It was fantastic and it didn't really matter what anybody was riding as long as they were out there. I rode a new bellyboard and had a blast.
For older surfers in need of some inspiration, check the surf film "Surfing For Life" or catch Mickey Munoz in "Chasing Dora." Either one may do more for you than a new board.
as regards to Surfing for life,My friend Bob and I took Woody Brown out for what was to be his last surf session,I think Woody was 90.BTW,he rode a longboard(the fish craze had not hit over here yet!).Woody always had a big ole grin on when he was out(so does Bob Ole Olson,he is 80,and still surfs on a longboard,all you can see is his smile)Anyways,as noted above,you gotta be able to chase down the waves and get in the right spot,as long as you are able to do that,you got the right board to catch waves.
After seeing the film, one thing I really wanted to do was meet Woody Brown in person. Unfortunately I'll never get that chance.
I did get a chance to meet Mickey Munoz in person at Sacred Craft. I only wanted to shake his hand and tell him how inspiring it was to see him catch 'that wave' in Chasing Dora. When I told him how stoked I was he said, "Comments like that make ME feel young!"
Woody Brown... RIP
Very late 50's,80 kgs, but its all in the middle, shoulder surgery X 4. Bodyboard only, but I love it because I love the water. I remember the days of standup but I enjoy what I have now.
Greg, you are in a win-win situation! catching more waves and enjoying the short board experience when up. Being a very strong swimmer helps you in many ways. I think thats part of the reason why I’ve got a different approach. I’m a big believer in swimming helping my paddling fitness for weekend surfing and aim to swim twice a week, but I have a health problem which limits my capacity to train and recover from hard exercise so after 35min in the pool I get out and I don’t go into the fast lane either. That and some skateboarding is the only mid-week exercise I do. So my limited capacity when combined with a slight build means I am not in any way strong. So I need the volume to maintain paddling speed in the channel - sometimes a long paddle - i’ve paced myself against others and in a prolongued paddle out thru the channel I keep up with a youthful chip rider (and beat the more ordinary ones), but on my Flyer 2 I’m 80% over volume using Dave of Diverse’s calculations for chip riders! Oh well.
on monday I was paying attention to wavecatching for this thread and I saw an expert shortboarder Jam the tail and he did it in a relaxed manner. So I need a different approach with my light weight and extra volume, what I do is leap up off my board and ram the tail of the board with both hands quite hard.
I do the same with my foiled out Pancho Sullivan Bushman (still an over volumed board for me), it pops forward just fine but I find it needs an extra paddle or two to get up to the plane before standing - not a big deal but the reason why I insisted volume always helps me on the volume and paddling thread. And as Sharkcountry said when everything works out perfectly its all a moot comparison anyway.
Same for duckdiving too - every competent surfer lifts their free leg while pressing down on the tail with the other (either knee or foot). But I have to do a really hard straight legged kick upwards - my mate who has watched me from the cliffs reckons it looks quite distinctive compared to the others. Except for the shallowest of dives I always press with my foot too - is this the usual?
I suppose it comes down to KCasey’s point that we are all very different
I’m rather tickled to be one of the few Swaylocks members to have met and surfed alongside Miki Dora, location was the break being discussed by Spacehopper on the 8’ Bruce Fowler gun thread
I’m 52, 5-7, 185# and in average shape. I hover between an LS and XLS sized wetsuit, depending on the vendor, shoulder/chest width always being the deciding factor. I surf 2-3 times a week when there’s surf and do some walking when the weather is good. I have very average surfing ability, no doubt far inferior to many of you guys.
For waist-head high and mushy I surf a 5-5 EPS fishie variant that’s more Zippi than Lis. For faster waves up to overhead I surf a 5-11 Modfish template twinzer. I have a 6-2 EPS quad thumbtail that I sometimes use for bigger waves. It’s a little low on volume for me (at 2.25") so I only break it out when I need the lower volume for the faster waves. The next time I do a board like that I’m going to add some thickness to at least 2.6". I also have a 6-4 diamond tail with wide point forward and a 2+1 fin setup that I sometimes use for bigger waves.
I usually won’t surf a wave that’s bigger than 1.5 OH because of the risks. I’ve never been seriously injured surfing and I don’t intend to start now.
For small mushy summer days I have a 6-10 single fin egg that usually lets me dominate the average novice longboarders. I also have access to my son’s 9-4 and 9-6 single fin longboards, but I rarely surf them. That will eventually change. I’m currently working on a 6-0 egg that’s half Simm (in the front) and half Nugget (in the rear); I’m planning on running the Nugget-style single fin. I would have gone longer on that board but the blank was free and I don’t want more than 3.5" of nose rocker on it.
My widths start at 20". The narrowest nose I use is a 14" (in the quad) and I tend to favor tails at 16" or even wider, although my 6-4 has a slightly narrower tail than that. I usually use thicknesses ranging from 2.5"- 2.85" and as little rocker as possible for the intended conditions, which in northern San Diego County tend to be a lot slower than in other areas. For these types of conditions I personally believe that boards of almost any length based on a variation of the conventional 6-2, 12n x 18.5w x 14.5t x 2.25 performance shapes are a complete liability for 95% of all surfers over 40. I don’t believe most surfers can outsurf an early 1980s thruster or quad template, foil and rocker combo. Add in a contemporary rail and fin setup and I think that will be plenty of performance potential for the way most people surf and the prevailing conditions in this area. Obviously the 8+’ longboards work well for a lot of people, too.
“I’m rather tickled to be one of the few Swaylocks members to have met and surfed alongside Miki Dora”
We were never “formally introduced” (he pretty much considered grems such as I was at the time to be just so much trash floating in the water) but I did get to watch him surf the 'Bu occasionally back in the early to mid 60s when I was learning there. He wasn’t hanging out there as much as he had previously, but Fain, Jackie Baxter, Henry Ford, Lance Carson and many of the MSA guys of that era (e.g.: Bob Marble, Butch Linden, Seaman bros., “Cowboy” Henderson, George Szigetti and JoJo Perrin) showed up frequently. Fain, in particular, seemed to always be there. You could really learn a lot back then just by watching the talent that showed up from all up and down the coast to ride the place when a big south swell would hit. Surf movie screenings weren’t all that frequent and YouTube/personal computers were years from even being imagined, so the ‘Bu was one of the best classrooms goin’ at that time.
Here is the article I remember about “catching”, by Richard Mc. Lot’s of good posts.
As an aside, I mentioned my brand new MR singlefin has a round silver dollar sized crack on the deck from a 3ft. day. How do you tell if the board needs a patch over the crack? How do I know if it’s going to take on water? Maybe it’s just the gloss coat? It’s not next to the stringer where a lot of my boards have needed additional glass. I don’t want to wait for discoloration before fixing. It’s a little shocking since the board has a resin tint and for it’s size feels pretty heavy.
the important thing is that you have found a shape that works well for you, so my attitude would be to just ride and enjoy it and not worry about whether it is going to discolour or not. Chances are by the time it is worn out you will be ready to challenge yourself with a new shape. I rode the crap out of my last PU custom and put a delam in the tail half the size of my foot.
G’day Oneula, yes I did follow your suggestion and PM Greg Griffin although I did not request any formulas and discussion. Instead I asked if it is OK for others to measure and post. The reason is that I do not want to take up his valuable time when I am not in the market for his boards. Last time I checked Mr Griffin’s profile he hadn’t logged on Swaylocks for many weeks so I think he must be really busy which is very good. I did however read some of his old posts and he has offered fin placement suggestions on a quad and also commented on someone elses CAD rocker design so it wouldn’t surprise me if he doesn’t mind, however in the absence of an answer I’m not going to ask any Griffin owners here for a “formula dump” because I know attitudes do vary here with the industry pros.
A good example of a formula dump was a thread called something like “unlocking the secrets of Bill Barnfields tri-fin positions” - I did a search but couldn’t find it again, however I do remember that someone had got hold of 3 of Mr Barnfields guns/stepups and was taking great delight in measuring them and trying to figure out the formula - just like I take great delight in measuring the famous shapers designs that I have owned or ridden. Anyway Bill Barnfield himself ended up joining in on the thread and explaining! so clearly he didn’t mind.
When I was writing to Greg Griffin I thought I might as well write to Jeff Bushman, so I emailed Mr Bushman telling him my age and a paragraph explaining just why I thought his TL2 Pancho Sullivan model was such a fantastic board for me. He replied! only a short reply but a very encouraging one 
yes 6" is a lot for a board that length and it is possible that it is holding you back, however recently I am starting to realise something that Deadshaper said to me about isolating measurments doesn’t tell the full story is true. eg the 6’ 1" McCoy nugget has 6"+ nose rocker, but it is an incredible wave catching machine due to other compensations: notably the massive tail width and 3" thickness extending right into the tail. Another example is that I would have thought that my Bushman Pancho Sullivan model would have too much tail rocker for my skatey style however there are compensations - no visible tail kick - rocker is spread along rear section and the entry section is low - with plenty of nose flip to keep it from pearling.
Had the MR singlefin out in overhead sucking low tide beachbreak yesterday for 3 hours. When I came out of water a surshop owner came over to check out the board. He said he llkes single fins but finds they are hard to bottom turn. Well in three hours I didn’t have one bottom turn. In beachbreak suckouts of that size you better angle your takeoff. The board worked great with a 7.5 fin. Really held the hollow waves. Plenty of speed to try to beat the closeouts. As an aside I bought a 6’ x 19 3/4 x 2 3/8 really cheap today. $100. Only been in the water once. It was won in a raffle by a girl who doesn’t surf much. Nose had been broken when she moved and she still took it out so there’s a little discoloration but not much. No foot compressions so she obviously didn’t catch anything. Took about 45 minutes to rebuild the nose. I was thinking of putting a noseguard on it to hide the work when I realized I haven’t seen any guards on boards for the past couple of years. What happened? Is it not cool to have a nose guard? I think they do what they advertise. $12 for a bit of safety doesn’t seem like much.Oh yeah, there’s a basketball sized advertising logo on the deck and bottom (bowling alley) how can I cover that? Are there paints that adhere to fiberglass? I assume that if i paint over the logos that 300 grit sandpaper over the paint will minimize any unwanted drag?
Great thread. Maybe too late for my .02, but I have been riding a 6’4" Hynson twinzer fish and find that the flat bottom, Hynson hard rail and lack of nose rocker translate into good wave count, easy turning and a perfect all around board for me. Better than a 7’0" Stretch quad and a 6’8" fish I have been using as well. Beats them both in terms of easy wave catching and speed on the wave. I’ve been interested in the Griffin fish, but I saw some for sale on this site and the pictures look as though the boards have way too much nose rocker.
For grins and giggles.
a shot taken earlier this week as I was coming back out of an intentional tail slide.
I’m 62 (in about two weeks) and the board is a 7’10" X 23 1/2 John Mel Ghostbuster III twin keel that he did for me after a long discussion about hulls.
enjoy…