I’ve been coming across the “broomtail” or “broomtail fish” design mentioned a few times by thrailkill and a few others. But I haven’t been able to find any threads discussing the design or how they surf.
Lankameese supposedly had a build thread on a broomtail fish but I can’t find it. So if anybody has any experience with this design and be willing to give me some thoughts on it?
From what I’ve been able to gather it’s based off a fish design but minus the buttcrack, creating a broomtail or arc tail. But I was curious about bottom contours (flat bottom like a fish?), rail profile, preferred fin setup (keel, twingle, or other), how they surf (comparable to a keel fish?), advantages over a traditional fish?
Man, the OG swaylocks had so much, blah, blah.
Thrailkill hyped them up so they probably worked great. This site used to have a beautiful pic of a twingle broomtail with a concaved tail right behind the fins.
But, looking at the few pics in the below post, it looks like dead flat or with vee. But who knows?
You’ve probably already seen this: 1971 Surfer Mag Discovery - #78 by thrailkill
I did find this photo with a twingle setup. But I’m kind of wondering without the buttcrack how the performance changes.
ie. turning, preferred wave type. It looks fast as hell.
I’m also curious how keel fins would do on the board since it is an evolved design of the fish.
With the buttcrack, you have basically two mini pintails. It helps because the tail is so wide, it allows water to flow right up the middle. If that buttcrack is gone, you’ve just widened your tail and water now has to work its way all the way around.
Without that buttcrack, I personally would add extra vee in the tail.
Imagining them as a twin seems weird to me, but what do I know. Shape one and find out.
That’s kind of what I’ve been reading and what I would have assumed but I’ve seen a few Thrailkill posts where he suggests/hints the performance isn’t really changed all that drastically. Which is why he’s a fan of the broomtail.
Which would go back to a thread on fish buttcracks where some think it’s more a stylistic thing than actual performance.
That’s actually the plan eventually but I’ve got a list of boards in my mind I’m planning on making already.
7’6 Egg Twingle
Keel Fish
Broom tail “Fish” (just unsure on the fin setup)
But being in Taiwan, sourcing foam blanks is quite expensive and difficult. So I’m stuck with reshaping old boards which I have to find.
Without the butt crack, there is significantly more tail surface area. No question that changes performance.
I rode a 5-6 Hansen Stratoglas twin in the early 70s. Basically, it was a Retro Fish without a butt crack. But I never rode a fish. IMO the twin semi-pins of a Retro Fish change performance.
With a Retro Fish and no butt crack, I see tail Vee and fin shape/size as very important.
Seems like no butt crack would make a Retro Fish more like a Mini-Simmons with rails that are less parallel.
That shape works, but I like it with fins on the rail. Without fins on the rail, you need a lot of vee in the tail. Look up what McTavish is doing with this shape as a single fin. I think there are videos online. He has it down to under 6 feet. The surfer’s Journal did article about it.
