As I excitedly await Fall, and the waves that will come, I have starting laying out designs for a ‘big wave’ shortboard, aka the mini-gunn. Keeping in mind that I live in Southern California, It’s more like Newport’s steep 6’-8’ (not exactly big) so I want a more stable shortboard, capable of handling a little more speed. Unfortunately there isn’t a lot out there on this board, and much of what I’ve found is in disagreement with other sources. Even the mighty Swaylockian Archives was short on design info. Seems the more I try to apply theory, the convoluted I become. At the moment I’m leaning more towards a shortboard with a few modifications, eliminating the elements that hinder the shortboard on bigger waves…. Though I’m not sure exactly what that is, 3-stage, concave? Seems the biggest problem is sliding out, which means insufficient fin contact, both through physical fin size and too much tail lift? …less cant, less toe in? I’ve seen two main types, some are slightly longer (still curvaceous) shortboards with a pintail, standard 3-stage rocker with concave to dub – others are short guns, with a slender, hip-less tail section, continuous rocker with Vee to tri-plane to vee. The double concave drive could be good, but the center concave doesn’t seem like something I would want on a big wave board – maybe I over did it, but the concave on my Mod Fish seems to make the board very “skatey” at speed, not something I’d want for bigger waves. I’ve never had a continuous rocker, and not sure if it’s too much for the moderate sized waves we get here. I’m also kind of stuck on the rails, seems a sharp rail on the tail would help cut into the steep face, but the dynamics of it suggest that it might generate too much lift in the rear – not to mention hanging up at speed. The softer rail should allow more water to wrap around, creating a more stable board at speed? I realize this is a bit much, I’m just looking for some sound theoretical reasoning, in absence of that, past experience with such a board. Being a former 1-board-quiver surfer, I never had this type of board, definitely something you add to ‘fill in the gaps’, not a primary stick. As always, any advice is greatly appreciated. Cheers,