Yes, good longboarding all around. But, something didn’t quite look right. I re-wound video to the beginning and saw that all the boards being carried to the water were 2+1 or tri-fin. IMO longboard style was developed on the single-fin platform, which to this day always looks better to me. I don’t know what it is, it’s hard to explain. In the water, I can easily spot a single vs. a 2+1 rider. I guess it’s just what I grew up on back in the day. In my hometown, pretty much all the good longboarders ride single.
Hawaiian that’s why. 2 plus one on the average longboard @ 9’. That’s what they like and ride well. You just don’t see that many single fins over there.
Most of the younger people riding longboards here ride the modern style 3 fin boards. Popularized by the wave hogs and adopted by the masses, they are designed for turning and surfing off the tail like a short board but paddle way better. There are still a lot of people riding single fin longboards, but they are usually older.
A lot of the younger generation are into hanging toes off the nose, especially the girls. Seems like there’s a bunch of younger women that like that style of surfing.
When I shaped on Maui, I did 2+1… the boards I shaped over there were not like the 2+1’s in the video. They had more traditional elements, but were definitely not “old school”. They were set up with sidebites so that they could be ridden in steeper waves. In up to head high waves I rode them as single fins.
Hello; how do they paddle better? plenty of drag with thrusters regarding single finned…very possible due to the shapes are thinner lighter and with other nose measurements but not for the fins; except if those single fins are too big, too much cutaway; too thick bad positioned, etc
They paddle way better than short boards. A 9’ board will out paddle a 6’ board every time. They can be ridden like short boards if you stand on the tail. I don’t think these kids were alive before the thrusters took over, so most of them grew up in a 3 fin world.
In the 80s these things started to get popular when guys like Lance Ho’okano started riding them and ripping up waves. He’d paddle back out so fast, then be able to sit outside of the shortboarders and catch all the good waves. There wasn’t anything he could do on a shortboard that he couldn’t do on his 9’ board. It didn’t take long for others to see the benefits of going longer, and soon we had the longboard problem. Then the SUPs replaced the longboards for the wavehogs and the old guys who couldn’t keep up with all the young guys on longboards. The wavestorm has been an interesting problem because they paddle like a 10’ log. So many people use them because they are cheap and paddle so well. A lot of my friends will ride the wavestorm instead of a longboard when the waves are small.
I have a 9’4" modern longboard set up with side bites, but I’ve only ridden it as a single. It was a great board, but it’s in the mothball pile because the bottom is full of stress cracks. I also have a 9’ Greg Griffin modern longboard that is a thruster, I’ve only used it once. I prefer my longer boards to be 8’ or less, but I do have a really fun 8’6", all are single fins.
…I never compared to an small board; what I asked and mentioned is referring between longboards.
I know a plenty about those thin high performance longboards; all the longboards in Brasil are like that and those guys dominated the circuit for a long time.
Well I wasn’t saying they paddle better than a traditional single fin longboard. We were talking about different things. I think a lot of surfers here prefer having boards that have a similar feel when they go from short to long. But there’s a lot of people here that just ride those modern 3 fin longboards, way too many. Those boards are a one board quiver.
I’ve gone the other direction and have gotten down to a 5’6" fish and a 5’10" nugget. Last summer my small board was a wide 5’10" fish.