Dr strange that is rude and un called for. The taint is the skin between.
Pandanus …and on a Fish, its the glass between…uh, deck and bottom. 'Taint much of it neither. Unless you deliberately make it thicker to prevent leash damage.
My vote is for the flexibility of the stringerless foam pieces of the fish tail.
But doing all these wide cutlaps, I guess the lack of stringer is way compensated by the excess of glass around rails. Not very flexy, I guess.
Just some B.S. semantics. If you pull the tail in and change the fin configuration you will, of course, change the performance. But, it’s not a fish. It’s a swallow tail or dove tail or call it what you want. If you want to explore the ride of a fish, then build a fish. Ben, I would not call your Bushfire fish(a sweet little board by the way) a fish, but a swallow tail. Put a diamond tail on it and what would you call it? A stubbie? Might be fun to build a stubbie and put some twin keels on it. Twin fin square tails were fairly common back in the 70’s. I never rode one, but they seemed to work very well. Mike
Maybe I missed it above, but I also thought the swallow tail was to take some flotation out of the back end. Not only does this let you front-foot surf it (as was mentioned already) but it also makes the nose rails less prone to catching and it makes you less likely to get pitchpoled on late takeoffs in jacking waves on an otherwise very wide board. Anyone who’s spent any time at all on a short, wide, flat (“traditional”) fish knows that spinning around to plunge in on a no-paddle takeoff is a big part of the fun. Add more bouyancy to the tail, though, and you’d get so much lift you’d have to wash the sand out of your eyelids.
here’s a thought…
Perhaps “the very wide tail and big “butt crack” [an american term , not MINE] serve no purpose at all any more , and are simply cosmetic .”
[I received this in a ‘p.m.’]
In support of that , I’ve gotta say …In headhigh hollow surf , my squaretailed stubbie single fin holds in MUCH better than the “traditional” fishes I have ridden . And is just as “fast” as a fish…[sorry , no “gps” readings available yet …whatever THEY are ?!].It also turns better, shorter radius turns… (But still very few want to break away from the “fish” mindset , eh ?)
cheers
ben
Just was directed to a post on this thread-- There’s a pic of your square-tailed board you mention above somewhere, yeah, Ben?
That’s an very interestin comment you have – I;ll have to go read this whole thread…
EDIT: I think and have thought that the comment (iam2sam?) about the deep swallows’ release —
(no flow rail wrap inside the crack–esoteric terms, eh?–Ben, is your square-tail a sharp cornered square and sharp rail releases?)
—being what helps top speed is half of it, the bite from the pins the other half, and keeping the rail straight for speed and front-oriented carviness the other, um, half…lol…
in fast waves, the bite and speed of the pins, rail–I think Brom’s fish are perfect examples of what the speed fish looks like, and you look for what’s not there
for slower speed surfing, get some curve into the rail for less lengthy, lesser quality waves–add some curve volume into the swallow for even slower waves, wave-catching, planing over dead zones…
Where is LeeD, anyway, Ben? Did he get hitched or something?
hi janks !
…" Just was directed to a post on this thread-- There’s a pic of your square-tailed board you mention above somewhere, yeah, Ben? " …
Yeah , here’s a link to the original thread , back in november 2004 …
both these boards were glassed out at Hicksy’s shed / garage .
cheers !
ben
12.35am wednesday morning here , so …“goodnight”, for now …
Ben,
Your observations are correct. The ‘‘Butt Crack’’ is a silly affectation, and serves no functional purpose. I’ve been making square tailed, or arc tailed Fish since 1971, single fin and twin fin. They are stunning performers. (so I’m told)
Hmmm
I always thought I liked a nicely shaped butt crack
But
now Bill says he eschews such delving.
I think I shall have to think closely on this matter.
EDIT: So Bill, you’re saying that the shape of the trailing edge of a planing surface, if it’s in the swallow planshape, is ineffective, although
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several of them have been made and ridden fairly effectively over the intervening years since you designed your favored tail outlines.
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I wonder why you would articulate such a wholesale judgement about them, when, if I read you right, you don’t surf any of the things yourself.
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If you simply filled in the swallow of a fish, to a square tail, you would change the characteristics of the exiting flow pretty significantly, which would result in some different riding characteristics. If I, say, liked the resulting riding characteristics, or
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if say, Dave Rastovich, or Tom Curren, Rob Machado, liked those riding characteristics, having had the opportunity to ride anything they wanted, with some degree of expertise as I see it, and perceptive ability, I would think,
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who’s to say, Bill, that a nice buttcrack is a thing which simply doesn’t do anything worth having done?
With all due respect.
Here’s what I (think I) know:
-the wide tail is to give more volume to the tail, helping get in the wave sooner, and giving a straight rail line for speed and (let’s not forget about this one) stability, since fishes are ridden much shorter then conventional boards
-the deep and wide buttcrack is to give two pintails that hold to the face of the wave when the wave is hollow. For the same reason the fins on a traditional fish are straight and double foiled: they’re not to give lift towards the face in turns, but to hold the tail in and stabilize the ride.
-I would also argue that the fish tail provides a much cleaner release then a square tail, since we all know the water doesn’t just flow front to back under a surfboard, but that’s a different topic
-the deep buttcrack also controls up-the-face turns using the inside of the crack as a guide to turn. this is why a traditional fish has the insides of the butt crack rounded instead of being just a straight swallow like the modern one (where the cut is JUST to take some surface out of the tail so that it can sink in and bite better)
these points are basically the summary (tail wise) of what I gathered studying the fish design for about 1 year. keep in mind that I don’t have a strong surfing-shaping background, but I’m a product designer, therefore understanding designs is (of the most diverse nature) is what I do for a living.
one last note: Ben, if you want a single fin swallow, that’s OK, but the fish design was developed with something else in mind. it’s more like having two single fin pintails. think about skying 
The guy who loaned me the first fish I rode explained the buttcrack by pointing out the board was essentially an asymetrical pintail while you were running down the wave, and obviously… gets alot looser once the other ‘tail’ is engaged during a turn…
Is that B.S.?
It made sense to me before riding them, but I’ve wondered about it since then because most of the time, it seems that both fins (and both sides of the tail) are in use while trimming.
I did have a giant diamond tail single fin (the tail was about probably 12 inches or so) that was incredible loose and drivey for having such a big fin. It was also very, very, fast… but I didn’t really feel like the turn radius was shorter at all… but then, this single fin was pretty long (6’8"?)
They do look pretty… I’ve also wondered about the shape of them… why we didn’t end up with just a half-circle back there?
Hey Chip, like your board with multiple fin position options, why don’t you shape a traditional fish with a 6 inch butt crack, then make some “inserts” (I’ll leave it up to you to invent how they attach!) so you can ride it at 6", 4", 2", and 0" butt cracks keeping everything else constant. Then you’ll know what amount of swallow tail has an affect on your surfing. If the inserts are hard to set up, just shape four different boards with everything the same except depth of butt crack!