I’m struggling riding anything with a concave but flat bottoms are working great for me and I just can’t work it out.
I’ve asked everyone I know to shed some light but nothing.
Am I the only surfer in the world who can’t ride concaves???
I’m 5’10", 88kg and split my time between two boards;
6’0’ x 21.5" x 2.5" flat bottom quad fish with a set of MRTX twinnies and DVS side bites.
A 6’4’ x 20.25" x 2.75" Webber “The One” thruster.
The quad fish just flys, so much speed and feels really solid under foot. It comes off the bottom and off the top with heaps of speed.
The 6’4" seems to bog coming out of bottom turns and does the same thing coming out of top turns. It’s fast done the line but the moment I start going top to bottom I get this same problem.
Is it just me, or is this what concaves do?
Are flat bottoms better suited to a particular style / weight / level of surfer?
Chrissom - my experience is similiar to yours. Wide boards with concave bottoms don’t like to roll up on rail, so they don’t perform well in drawn out turns. I find they will make pivot turns that you don’t lean into though. Some shapers put ‘v’ in the tail for those boards to help them go well rail to rail. My favorite bottom is a little ‘v’ between the feet and flat everywhere else, but I give up a little speed dropping in or down the line. I suspect flat bottoms have a little more speed on mushy sections than concave bottoms, but concave bottoms come to life when it’s hollow. My experience.
That’s not what concaves do, but that is what “lower entry sets the board up for ripping small surf while the slightly fuller volume adds paddle power” do. (from the global surf industries website)
Rocker is more important than template when it comes to how a board rides. Visualize what happens to a heavily rockered nose when it is put hard on rail. The nose’s curve almost acts like a rudder to turn the board into the face of the wave when coming off the bottom. Thick volume boards, especially thick at the rail, tend to not carve as well. Flat rockered tend to go fast, but not turn as well.
Which leads to my thought, What are you doing riding a global industries piece of crap, when your local handshaper could have designed a board around your beach, your size, and your ability for almost the same cost?
If you’ve been around here a while, you’ve seen Surfdings posts. The guy makes boards for several contest pros, done in a week, for just over $400 if I remember correctly. That’s just one example. Depending on where you live, pick one of the pro posters here who’s thoughts you like, and send them a P.M.
No expertise here, but in my experience a wider board with full concave ( single into double) can be hard to transition from rail to rail. That could throw off your timing and lead to bogging. Rocker, fin arrangement, and the presence (or absence) of 'V' also have an effect. I don't think you'd feel like you were bogging down off the bottom if the concaves were confined to the tail and combined with a degree of 'V'.
Chrissom I’m the same size and I’ve experienced the same thing. Had a board last year, 6’-3 x “21” wide x 2/34" thick quad with a super deep single from nose to tail and low rocker. I could not get the thing to release off the top, kept getting hung up in the lip and just basically hated it. Go it to work better with two large twinnies in the front with a small trailer in the back but I just didn’t like it compared to the flatter bottoms with some vee. Thin narrower boards go better with concaves, wider thicker boards need displacement features (for me anyway).
[img_assist|nid=1058465|title=rockers of three thick boards|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=0|height=0]
[img_assist|nid=1058354|title=Dimensions and rocker figures of The One by Webber|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=0|height=0]
I have borrowed, surfed and measured a 6' 2" The One. I agree with much of what has been said here, but not everything. I'm on a borrowed puter and can't post full size images from IE, but dimensions are on the descriptions of these images I uploaded to Swaylocks.
However I am much smaller than you and The One I surfed is smaller, so I'm going to have to extrapolate my experiences and like everyone else guess how you surf. The one thing in common between our experiences is that the Ones we used are exactly 6" longer than our height. Combine this with medium/low nose rocker and medium/low tail rocker and its not going to easily go top to bottom particularly in small waves. Also your regular ride is quite a different shape getting its planing area from a wide fish shape rather than the extra length and HP shape of the One. Also you are comparing quad with thruster.
I therefore think that it being an overlong low rocker HP shape has a lot more to do with your difficulties rather than the concave.
Unlike you however I was able to flick it off the top quite readily - this is because the One I borrowed was an exceptionally light "SLX" epoxy build with low swing weight and I am used to turning HP shapes by pivoting from the tail. I did experience difficulty get a good thrusting top to bottom pump out of it due to this length and the rails which are chunky and rounded throughout its length. I do have a very good HP shape which has lowish entry rocker (my definition of entry is rocker measured 1' down from the nose) and a medium low tail rocker but not quite as low as the One. This HP shape (Diverse Sprint) surfs small waves top to bottom very well. The reason why it does it for me is that it is much shorter than the One I borrowed - the Sprint is just 5' 11" with thin rails up front.
So my suggestion is that if you want to surf a single concave thruster you need a shorter one. My description of the rails may be a red-herring for you coz unlike yourself I am very slightly built and will have problems burying a thick rail on any board. It could be that the chunky One rails are OK for you - I don't know.
However if your were to drop down the length then you might find this sort of HP shape lacking in planing area for the way you surf (I'm referencing your quad fish). So in which case a different shaped thruster might be the answer. I think the SLX epoxy build is very nice and it has stood up to the large amount of surfing that a mate of mine gives his boards. As it happens my mate also has an Afterburner by Webber - also in 6' 2" the main difference being its wider in the tail and has finer rails up front. The 6' 2" Afterburner is a great board and although it felt too big for me when I borrowed it I could get it to work quite well with pumping speed out of it - I don't have the figures handy, but from memory it has a medium/high tail rocker and a medium low nose rocker - it felt like it had heaps of planing area for sailing over flat spots and turned much more easily for me than the One. However not everyone gets on with the high tail/lowish nose rocker setup (lends itself more to front/even foot surfing) then in which case a similar sort of board, but with the opposite rocker setup (highish nose/ medium low tail) is the Flyer 2 - another great board.
Just realised I haven't mentioned concaves! So the One has a medium/deep single concave therefore going for a deeper concave is not IMHO the answer. Single concaves absolutely rule in the mush for me and will beat V/flat bottoms for rail to railing speed out of them. I agree with the previous suggestions that single concaves work best in narrow boards. However the One is not too wide and its tail in particular is a very manageable width. When boards start to get wider the double concave will work better - double set in a V is even more effective at managing width. The Afterburner is in this latter category. Provided the board is narrow then single concaves work well in solid waves too.