Hey Crossfire Herb, Jim the Genius, Lee V., Paul Jensen and the 50 other shapers and surfers that I’ve left out but want to include let me know if you have an opinion about this one.
After having real close look at some of Mark Goin’s shapes today I’m inspired. The guy does beautiful work. I’ve always favored swallow tailed and rounded pintailed boards. After shaping my first board (Trace # 1 – photo attached) that has a variation of a swallow tail Greg Webber calls a squish tail and searching for something that will suit the winter surf here in Santa Cruz I’ve decided to use this tail design and have a go at shaping a a big wave twinzer.
I drew up the outline to scale today:
8’0"x12.75"x21.0"x14.125"x2.75" with about 5.5" of nose rocker and 1.5" of tail rocker. I’m figuring the points on the tips of the tail to be about 4.5" or so apart.
These are preliminary numbers and I’m certainly up for suggestions.
I have a good friend who has a whole bunch of Jobson boards in the 8 foot range. All with mild swallow tails and twinzers.
The later ones have an unusual concave - sort of a single, but deepest close to the sides near the fin, and shallower in the middle - but still concave. And it’s quite deep as concaves go.
Anyway, the oldest one has roll instead of concave running through the tail. He (my friend) claims it handles bigger surf with far more grace than the others. These boards have all seen big Ocean Beach surf many many times. FWIW, HTH.
The roll actually reminded me a lot of the Clark guns. It is a very pronounced bottom contour.
If you want more detail on the boards drop me a line, I can probably get measurements…
Marks boards are very nice, I’ve been looking at them next to a lot of “regular” boards Rusty’s JC’s I’d definatly go with Goin, that is if I bought boards. Jeff Clark is big on Quads in big surf, I shaped a 6’8" bigger wave board with deep concaves carried out to the rail and a twinzer fin setup. It works well, but if the waves get real hollow it’s hard to do a classic hard bottom turn, I don’t feel like I can put all of my mighty 125 lbs. into it without a little slide. Jeff said “try a quad they work better in bigger surf” after seeing the board. I say go for it though, I like the way twinzers ride, figure it out so I can copy you;-)
Jeff Clark has and uses one, I also believe that it was built by Will.
Will Jobson makes several big wave Twinzers with great success !!!
Just make sure to stick to his formula and you won’t go wrong.
You’re close to Jeff’s shop ,stop by and check in.
As for Supercharged guns or CrossXfires…yeah they work killer in big stuff,I rode my 8-1 on Sunday(Sway’s event,Big Sur,Ca.).The 8-1(see #201 on the board archive page) was a bit undersized by I believe the advanced fin systems I use, made it possible to ride the waves I caught more managable(I still get adrenalin rushs from that day!).I still wish I could of rode my 8-8 or my 9-2 Supercharged guns but you go with what you got or you go home !
ON ANOTHER NOTE : Rich,I received your mentals Friday from TomatDaum and plan on trying them Tomorrow.They look killer and after talking with Tom abit on the subject I’ll bet they ride REAL NICE TOO! Got your instructions and plan on using them in my 7-2 you saw at the event.I’ll keep in touch…oh yeah my wife loves all the writings you send,she says that you must be a person w/ great feelings for literature and the lib.arts.
AND ANOTHER NOTE: Hey Jeff Clark,Jeff Neu says "HI"from the hurricane soaked south(Alabama).Herb
(if you want Neu’s email address drop a line).
ANOTHER NOTE: The thread above I started,“I Confess” was a fictional story…Have fun! Yeah,I’m for real.Herb
You cannot touch what is not tangable,you cannot see what is invisable.and you cannot hear what is silent…Hathcock USMC.
As a little feller, I’ve always needed narrower tails on my swallow or squash tailed guns. The width doesn’t get affected much, but the added volume/planing surface of the tail needs a narrower measurement at the one foot mark.
Quads def work well, handling walled up bigger surf really well, but sometimes, if the wave is a pure drop-in, like Middle Peak Lane, a single does the job…except for the kelp bulbs at Scotts.
That’s for the tips. I’m gonna take a drive up to Jeff Clarks shop this week, Blakestah. Maybe we can meet up there. Let me know when will work for you and maybe we can work something out. I’ve never seen a Jobson. I’ll have to look at his formula.
As far as the twinzer is concerned I think I have a good picture of what I want the rocker to look like, but I’m still working on the outline. Once I get that out of the way I’m move on how I’m going to do the bottom and rails. The outline has to come first. I’m leaning more toward a twinzer than a quad, but I still have some studying to do before I decide.
The more boards I look at the more single concave bottoms I see. Goin’s twinzers are shaped that way and have a very slight vee behind the fins (last 9" of the board).
Pillar, I don’t think a twinzer is the kind of board you drop straight down to the bottom of a steep face and crank hard off the bottom with. Somebody correct me if I’m wrong. They look to me like a board the you can run a steep face with and hold you line as high or low as you choose. It seems to me that you need a set-up with adequate center fin drive to do that.
Thanks for the kind words, Herb. If you have a board with nice long rail lines and the tail is drawn in some the "Mentals will turn on great. In bigger waves. You just need the rail line to make the board work. The boards of yours that I saw at Placett Creek hand hard down rails and I board like this with a wide tail and minimal fin surface can be real skatey. So try them on several of your boards - but expect to learn how much drive your boards really have when your surfing them. The boards that are able to hold a nice line in a steep face on their own an have enough rail line to generate some projection on their own will be the ones that surf best with the mentals. I as the waves get bigger and faces become more critical this will be apparant to you. One thin for sure. You’ll feel how much trim speed potential a given board has right away.
In order to better understand how I’ll generate the right twinzer for big waves I have several boards with a variety of bottom configurations and outlines that I want to ride on the next good swell we get. I’ll post some photos of them later. Right now I have lots of ideas to try but I gotta take care of the people that are waiting on me for fins and plumbing work first.
Your right about middle peak at the lane LeeDD – thats a single fin or tri fin spot if I’ve ever seen one. A little further inside at ‘Indicator’ or out at ‘The Slot’ it’s a different story though.
Jobson invented the twinzer, and is an obsessed tinkerer/shaper of the sort we all know and love.
I’ve seen Clark quads, but not twinzers. Of late, some of his friends tell me they move the rear quad fin inboard a little, and double foil it, and that this avoids the tracky tendency of the quad (it tends to stick in a preferred turning line). But it is not a twinzer. Clark probably has one though, he’s done a lot of experimenting with fin systems.
You are definitely right - twinzers are not made to crank big bottom turns, they hit a high line and trim better. I had a blast last spring in head high surf on a 6 foot board with a rocker/template patterned after the famous Curren fish, and a twinzer fin set-up. Instead of riding it straight down to the bottom, hit the rail fins and crank the nose into the steepest part of the face. Fun.
I’m around most of the week, a quick run to Jeff’s place would be easy.
you guys are right about the twinzer, down the line. All I was saying is that was the limitation I found in regards to the versitility of the setup… They are very fun to ride, fast as hell and loose. The last few quads I saw of Jeff’s had the double foiled rear fins set straight way off the rail and very close to the tail. Call Jeff and make sure he’s around, he just got back from Mex. and has been golfing alot.
Jobson invented the twinzer, and is an obsessed tinkerer/shaper of the sort we all know and love.
…You are definitely right - twinzers are not made to crank big bottom turns, they hit a high line and trim better. I had a blast last spring in head high surf on a 6 foot board with a rocker/template patterned after the famous Curren fish, and a twinzer fin set-up. Instead of riding it straight down to the bottom, hit the rail fins and crank the nose into the steepest part of the face. Fun.
see attachment below…[hope it’s readable…how does one preview an attachment, possible…or not?]
I don’t know much about twinzer for big wave boards. I am sure there are much better fin configurations for that… I sure like twinzers on boards in 6’ to 7’ range for 3’ to head high surf. Anything bigger and it rides like a skateboard with super loose trucks coming down a mountin… my 6’-8" round nose twinzer(Sparky) is fast down the line and is extremly loose and go vertical with ease…I use a double concave and reverse/outward tail channel vee that kind of works as second rail. work for me…
Quads have the back fins placed further back on the tail regardless of the fin sizes.
Twinzer have the fins clustered closer together and some over lap like mine do. You can use whatever fins you think your board would work best with…It looks like Jobson is using a larger twin type back fin and a LB size side bite front fins… I use a normal size back fin(GR) and either the GL or the GX side bite longboards fins for the front with 3 degrees more cant. this combo seems to work best for this board. This would not make a good big wave fin set up…
I don’t have much experience with twins or 4 finned guns but concaves and big waves never went together too well for me. The last thing I was looking for in the big stuff was lift!!! I’d stay flat or some v (or roll) in the nose to flat to v in the tail (we’re talking 1/4 inch or so). It seems you have plenty of planing area with the mid and tail width.
Quads have the back fins placed further back on the tail regardless of the fin sizes. Twinzer have the fins clustered closer together and some over lap like mine do. You can use whatever fins you think your board would work best with..It looks like Jobson is using a larger twin type back fin and a LB size side bite front fins.. I use a normal size back fin(GR) and either the GL or the GX side bite longboards fins for the front with 3 degrees more cant. this combo seems to work best for this board. This would not make a good big wave fin set up..
You are critiquing the DEFINING example of the Twinzer. Wil invented it in 1990, all the twinzers around here have fin setups EXACTLY like his, the one he designed. If you are doing something else, it is likely that people around here (Jobson used to live/shape out of Santa Cruz) will not consider it a twinzer. And when you use the term twinzer, I think of the fin system at Jobson invented it, with a small sub-fin leading and a larger main fin.
Or maybe I’m just being a pedantic asshole, up to you to decide…
It’s important to get the fin set-up we’re talking about clear because in the end that will define whether the board is a twinzer or not. I think you can make the fins different sizes but how they are placed will deterimine whether the board is a twinzer or not.
The way I see it a Quad had the trailers set more inboard and aft than a twinzer does. The trailers act more as directional stablizers. Making the trailer larger and placing if it is place more toward the rail would help with directional stability on the twinzer set-up. The lead fins on twinzers work more directly in conjunction with the trailer and act very much in a role of adding clean water flow around the principle drive fins which are in this case the trailing fins.I’m not sure exactly how the fins are placed but both designs necessitate a more relaxed tail rocker and fins placement further aft than the rail fins would be on a tri fin set-up. The fin placement for these two set-ups would certainly be best done by someone with alot of experience Like the shapers mentioned here. John Mel and Mark Goin both shape twinzers the doing things differently of course. I don’t see John doing this design for big waves but Mark’s boards look much different from John’s. His raillines and tails are more drawn in and thus they seem more approriate for bigger waves. Marks boards are where my inspiration has come from for a 5 ft.+ wave board. I’m still undecided as to whether or not to do the porject but I did go by Fiberglass Hawaii and look at blanks today. It looks to me like an 8’5" Super Blue would be the best one to use.
As to whether Jeff Clark is doing this type fin set-up or not I won’t be able to tell you until I look at his work. Hopefully I’ll be able to work at trip to Half Moon Bay in later this week.
I see the advantages of the four fin setup, but maybe not in a twinzer, if you are talking 8’ + wave sizing.
For sure they can work great, as Mavs has proven.
There is absolutely no reason for any squirreliness or instability with having just the side fins, as the board should be designed from the getgo with big, fast waves in mind.
Even two fins can be made to be stable and positive in big surf, just make the board long and narrow, the fins big!
Quads have the back fins placed further back on the tail regardless of the fin sizes. Twinzer have the fins clustered closer together and some over lap like mine do. You can use whatever fins you think your board would work best with…It looks like Jobson is using a larger twin type back fin and a LB size side bite front fins… I use a normal size back fin(GR) and either the GL or the GX side bite longboards fins for the front with 3 degrees more cant. this combo seems to work best for this board. This would not make a good big wave fin set up…
You are critiquing the DEFINING example of the Twinzer. Wil invented it in 1990, all the twinzers around here have fin setups EXACTLY like his, the one he designed. If you are doing something else, it is likely that people around here (Jobson used to live/shape out of Santa Cruz) will not consider it a twinzer. And when you use the term twinzer, I think of the fin system at Jobson invented it, with a small sub-fin leading and a larger main fin.
Or maybe I’m just being a pedantic asshole, up to you to decide…
so like if I put one of dem small C-5 type fins in front I would fit in cool in Santa Cruz? cause den it would be a certified twinzer. No?
Blakestah…My twinzer design is bassed on Jobson’s twinzer design. I have had three of his boards in the past an loved them all…I am just doing it slightly differnent…mybe I should call it the 4 Plex or The Gemelozer
I don’t have much experience with twins or 4 finned guns but concaves and big waves never went together too well for me. The last thing I was looking for in the big stuff was lift!!! I’d stay flat or some v (or roll) in the nose to flat to v in the tail (we’re talking 1/4 inch or so). It seems you have plenty of planing area with the mid and tail width.
I am no big wave hellman, but I trust Wayne Lynch’s judgement. He said pretty much exactly what you just said Mr. V, on the previously mentioned by me The Surfer’s Journal biography when he talks surfboard designs…
