I have ridden some incredibly fast waves with guys on logs to mats to boogers to shorties. The boogers are the slowest boards in the water, hands down. The logs and shorties are equally fast if ridden aggressively to generate speed. The mats are surprisingly quick, but like boogers they can’t be pumped for speed as a stand-up board can. Most log riders like to trim so they don’t make the more challenging super-speed sections. But some of the log riders I see will trim until the sections form and then they readjust their line or even pump the board to get across, going back into trim when things cool down again. I take it back, the surf-canoes are the slowest, then the boogers, then the mats, then the kneeboards, then the stand up boards. This is my opinion after surfing amongst all types for several decades. Rider skill is the most import factor for speed, so if you don’t know what you are doing it simply makes no difference what you are riding. I rode fast waves today with 1-3 foot faces. I was the only shortboarder out and the rest of the group was on logs and their was one canoe. Of the ten of people in the water, only myself and 2 of the log riders were making the zippy sections. Everyone else didn’t know what they were doing and would lose the wave before the first section would even form. The fastest board for 6’ point grinders would be a roundpin thruster shorty around 6-6 in length ridden by a guy like Bobby Martinez (6’ backs, not 6’ faces). I had an 8-2 thruster funshape with a lot of rocker that was fast when pumped for speed, but it didn’t trim well at all. Channels seem to make a board go quicker on a point wave, but contour-bottoms can be quicker too. Surftechs are the fastest boards and they are indestructible and a 6-0 shorty can float a 300lb ape and they are the fastest boards even with a beginner on them and so on… [tongue]
Any single fin shortboard will be faster than a thruster shortboard.
well, it really starts with the rocker…
The fastest ive ever seen anyone go is on a thruster…they guy riding it was Martin Potter.
Okay, pumping a shortboard is a good point. I was curious wether a single fin could be as fast as a thruster setup, but that does depend on how it is ridden. I can say for myself the Bonzer longboard allowed me to ride fast waves in a drop down, bottom turn, to up the face, turn back down for speed style. What I had in mind originally was pulling into the barrel and making it out. Considering the tight pocket of a 6’ wave’s barrel, and my less than ‘professional surfer’ abilities, I can’t foresee myself pumping while in the tube. A flat paipo does have minimal drag, but most work without fins/skegs. I have always thought that fins act to leverage power from the face of the wave and therefore generate speed. I came to this conclusion after falling off the steep face of several waves on a bodyboard. It felt like if I had a fin in the face of the wave I would have been going faster. This idea is supported by looking back to the first boards with fins or keels (wakiki hugh wooden boards → hot curl) and the anticdotal evidence suggesting that the new boards were so much faster.
Well if your ‘test’ wave involves a steepness that would cause a finless board to skitter, then that should be a wave criterion. Basically, you’ve given little info on the wave. Certainly a longboard greater than 9’0" would be in a wave too early and be ahead of the wave?? is it a peak or is it a long point break. Makes all the difference in the world. If it was a short hollow peak, then the longboard would drop in too early and make it to the shoulder quickly but not with a top speed being achieved by missing being in the meat/vortex of the wave. As to single fin shortboards vs. thruster there are all kind of difficult wave conditions tha a single fin cant contend with very well that a thruster can make easily…throw out the shortboard singles. For all kinds of waves considered I think you can throw out the boogey’s , bellyboards. On long point breaks where the longboards and talented shortboarders are making difficult and impossible sections…these guys have no hope. Can a talented shortboarder make impossible sections better at a fast point wave than a talented longboarder??? I’m not sure?? But I’ve seen the best at Malibu, and it seems the ‘best’ shortboarders can indeed outbeat the longboards on the impossible sections.
Fastest thing on the water,… definetely “The Black Pearl” Arghhh mateys. Personally I’d go with a longboard.
What if a fast thing can change itself to become even faster? The answer is a surf mat. Or the best of the best bag pilots, Mr. George Greenough. Paradigm-altering, effortless generator of silent, searing speed. Recall that his exquisite high speed carbon graphite kneecraft were abandoned for the ethereal magic towel. Does anyone dare to ask why? Most do not understand. It is not about fins, thin rails, flat rocker, flotation, surface area or the force of pumping. Most do not sense that invisible pathways of energy exist in every wave. Throw in twisted, coarse ridges to a fast sectioning, oblate 6’ wave + a modern era surf mat. To the cognizant there is no less friction than the spirit of one`s own breath moving quickly across the water. It feels alive because it is. The pure essence of surfing, as with painted art, reveals itself through brush and artisan, tool and servant. As with all that is most worthy, it is a sin to confuse the means for the end. Cursed are they who have not seen and yet disbelieve.
can’t argue with that!
I wouldn’t do a long a flat log for a gaping 6’ tube as the low rocker would be a headache. If you are resolved to the trim style of riding, a single fin semi-gun with the wide point forward and down-rails would probably be more than you can handle. Thruster shorties are super fast when pumped but they are at a disadvantage when ridden flat (all fins in the water) and just trimming along. If the wave is super perfect and not fast, any board will make it to the shoulder. I suppose you need to name the surfspot you are talking about. Pipeline? Hazards? OB? Teuhapu? Kirra? Lani’s? Let us know so we aren’t talking out of our rear ends.
Naming the wave is the hard part. I’m out on Long Island, New York, and I deal with alot of closeouts when the waves get around 6’. It’s all sandy bottom and shifty, so I’m not thinking of a particular place, more a situation. Have you ever seen a picture of a wave that looked perfect, but you knew from being there that it was unmakable because it was too fast? That’s the wave I want to make, or at least make some of the time. What about a shortboard with the fin setup more paralell, without so much cant and toe in? The board would have minimal planing surface, and the fins would have less drag.
I can’t argue because I don’t understand. I’ve never understood how a mat can hold the face of the wave. Don’t they slide down the face when it gets steep? Does anyone have footage of a surfmat being ridden in fast waves?