The devil’s in the detail…Look at Bert’s 6 9 …@ 18" up - the width is 18.5" or therabouts…much wider than most trad bb shortboards… The truth is that a heavier chap needs proportionately more planing area than a lighter one…
a 150 lb on a 6 2 scales up to a 7 9 …if you keep the width the same… so something must give… Bert seems to distribute width between mid point and 12", pulling tail in dramatically at the end…He also uses lower tail rocker…
I’ve tried to incorporate both of these ideas into my recent short “ish” boards… Wow …wish I’d known this all 10 years ago when I was trying to struggle on something a skinny shaper made me ( ie short narrow and thick)…
In my experience, it’s surface area between your feet that counts…so I agree no need to go mini mal — go Big Boy shortie…pointy turny…drivey and fun
The problem is, is that he’s 6’7" and almost 270 lbs. I don’t know how many of you out there are 6’7" but he can easily throw around an 8ft board. I’m 6’3" and 205, and I’ve been as heavy as 225, slinging a 7+ to 8ft board is not an issue. Now this guy is a fricking monster, were talking offensive lineman big. Anything under 8 ft will be like a 6’2 to you and me. The average joe is like 5’7" or so…he’s a foot bigger than you, 12 inches. So if your surfing a 6’8", he’s going to need at least a 7"8…but hes got about 100 lbs on you too.
Heres a little test, take you 6’8" x 20 1/2 x 2 5/8 out and strap 2-60 lb bags of mortar mix to your ass. Let’s see how well it floats now. Heck try the same thing with a 7’4" 21" x 3". And all this is for a realtively calm day, now throw in a lot of water moving around…fricking misery, surfings is supposed to be fun.
Make a hi-performance big board, I mean big board, not a 6’10" or 7’4" make a big board 8’6", put all the rocker in it so it fits in the pocket and what not. It will serve you well.
Excuse me for asking but… What is a Mini Mal? Is that what we call a Mini Tanker?
I love to ride it all from bodysurfing to a 6’4" shortboard all the way up to a 12’ Stand Up Paddle/Tandem board. Its a mood thing. I got 11 boards in my quiver and all are completely different! Heck, I like surfing a 1-man canoe too! Being born and raised in Hawaii means heavy ocean activity exposure. I loved the variety of ocean activities I was exposed to growing up. I am constantly in contact with some of the best surfers in the world. Shortboarders and some of them charge giant tow-in waves and are in every one of the latest mags and websites surfing Tahiti or Peahi… A few are pro longboarders that rip and 1 guy even has a world title under his belt… ALL of us ride all kinds of boards because its variety and it keeps things interesting…
I shaped a 7’11" Mini Tank that worked unreal on that first swell we had a couple weeks ago. It was 6’+ Hawaiian scale and very juicy… I think the guys you’re talking about just want to try something else. Its very common here… Its all good…
Chipfish and Hicksy can correct me on this one but:
A Mal in Aussie speak for a longboard. They are called Mals, cause back in the day early 60’s…the Californians that travelled to Australia either were from Malibu, or at least surfed there and spoke very highly of ther place. thus the boards they rode, old 60’s style logs, became known as “Mals”.
A MiniMal is simply a smaller v ersion of a longboard, not quite a funboard, just a scaled down longboard. like 7’ to 8’6" ish
The problem is, is that he’s 6’7" and almost 270 lbs. I don’t know how many of you out there are 6’7" but he can easily throw around an 8ft board. I’m 6’3" and 205, and I’ve been as heavy as 225, slinging a 7+ to 8ft board is not an issue. Now this guy is a fricking monster, were talking offensive lineman big. Anything under 8 ft will be like a 6’2 to you and me. The average joe is like 5’7" or so…he’s a foot bigger than you, 12 inches. So if your surfing a 6’8", he’s going to need at least a 7"8…but hes got about 100 lbs on you too.
Heres a little test, take you 6’8" x 20 1/2 x 2 5/8 out and strap 2-60 lb bags of mortar mix to your ass. Let’s see how well it floats now. Heck try the same thing with a 7’4" 21" x 3". And all this is for a realtively calm day, now throw in a lot of water moving around…fricking misery, surfings is supposed to be fun.
Make a hi-performance big board, I mean big board, not a 6’10" or 7’4" make a big board 8’6", put all the rocker in it so it fits in the pocket and what not. It will serve you well.
Thanks to all for your insight. Resinhead nailed it. In conversation with people I often hear them say, “oh dude, I used to have this board, a 6’10" with real chunky rails. You would love that thing.” I think the reality is most people don’t realize how much extra weight 50 lbs actually is. It’s a lot. I rode a friend’s 7’0"x20x25/8 “big guy” tri last month and sank up to my tits. Once I got the thing going, it was fun, but in terms of positioning or paddling in any kind of heavy water, it just seemed implausible that I would ride the board with any kind of regularity.
FWIW, I cut the blank last night: 8’4"x23x3 w/6 inches of nose rocker and a slight kick in the tail. We’ll see how it goes.
good choice…funny how close that is to my earlier recommendation…i went back and read the whole thread…definitely a wide range of opinions and some weird evolvement of thought…
time to lay low again…onward
ps
ever wonder how a jumbo jet even gets off the ground? such an incredibly heavy object and such scrawny wings?
why is one swingweight of a standard golf club defined as a 2 gram change of its head weight? the club weighs about a pound, about 454 grams, why would a 2 gram change matter? its only a 0.4% change but accomplished golfers and club fitters go thru great lengths to dial it in to within one swingweight…weird huh?
My whole point was that we get into this shortboard vs longboard b.s., poly vs epox b.s. I just wanted to put my two cents in that it all depends on the rider. whats acceptable for me in San Diego, probably isn’t acceptable in Florida. But than again guys in S.D. look at my boards and say “whatever freek, where ya gonna surf that thing, the Cove at 20 feet”. We all have different abilities surfing, and we all can’t surf like Slater. I struggled for years on a 6’4", thinking that was the right board…because everybody was surfing that size. One day I used a friends 7’4", and the rest is history. The right board for the right guy, and you got a good thing. we should all try different boards in all conditions. It will make you a better surfer…at least in my mind I’m surfing like Slater…maybe it’s more like Kelty Slaughter the semi pro hack
I surfed a 6 4 for years until I gained 20lbs and then a 6 8 was as short as I felt comfortable with. Designed correctly I still can turn it just like a 6 4 and when it gets crowded I take out a 7 0 or 7 2. Over the years the width has increased from 18 1/2 to 18 3/4 to 19 to 19 1/4. my thicknesses vary.