I’ve always been fascinated with “Y’s” boards especially the slight peanut shape which dates back to way earlier and his afterburner rails in the tail.
Then Benny1 did his bamboo peanut and said it rode just fine.
Now I have a chance to get my hands on one of the 10 worst things to happen to surf design according to surfing magazine, the REX Manta or as the magazine called it the “Picklefork”. But you lnow me, I gotta find out for myself.
It was a local kid totally shredding my favorite break going at mach 10 on his little 5’8" Manta that inspired me to go the route of a custom Gemini from Jeff Alexander a couple years back. And although I’ve progressed onto to Griff’s 5-fin, the quad catamaran-like Gemini is still on of my favorite high speed in control frontside boards of all time. It’s the stepping on a bar of soap feel I was envisioning when I read Tom Morey’s original article on surfing sir injected boards he did for Surfer Mag back in the 70’s.
Anyway as I was looking at the pics of this awfully weird looking design I suddenly noticed that REX put hips on his Manta which is way different than Jeff’s design. Although both board are shaped reverse with the wide spot up front…
At first I thought wow this is a really strange design
Then I saw this photo below as I was building out that video archive project…
Now I’m thinking hmmm?
Ride reports to follow…
I didn’t forget Mr. Fish…