OK. This is the second post I’ve seen in 3 days (here is the other: http://tinyurl.com/3dgqkq) showing images of this guy Rasta going vert and/or getting air, on what appears to be a fairly vanilla fish template in the Lis/Frye tradition. Understood that we are looking at a damned fine surfer, but: is this all due to his skills in overcoming the weaknesses of the board; is there more to the Van Straalen template than meets my eye; do the cutaway keels make that much difference; or are the downsides of more-or-less-traditional fish in this regard frequently exaggerated? Inquiring minds wish to know :->
-Samiam
Rasta is a freak talent, but if you ride a fish the correct length (short) and put in your time (practice, practice, practice) and you too can go vert. At 6’0" and 180lbs, I ride a 5’8" (and plan to go shorter next time) twin-keel Mabile and enjoy pushing it high and vert.
That’s from Hydrodynamica, isn’t it? I’ve watched the footage that sequence is from a million times. Well, 20 or so anyway.
I think that orange-railed beige fish was Daniel Thomson riding a Pavel fish. Rasta rides the blue Van Straalen in the clip ; “microdot” is how that one’s referred to in TSJ.
Van Straalen uses a sort of S rail, a groove anyway, in the last foot to the tail corners on his fish (that I’ve seen) to speed the water’s release off the tail. Can’t exactly recall if he uses that on the inside of the swallow, but I think he does. He used “reverse Vee” too, instead of normal concave (I think reverse vee seems a lot faster/less sticky than concave, but what do I know). Ask “Elefante” if you can find him. He had one; he posted pics at Surfermag a year or so ago.
EDIT: Just visited DVS’s website (http://www.classicwaterman.com/), and apparently he’s now doing fish with rolled bottoms to some kind of concaves, one’s a triple concave. His Rocket Fish is a pulled trad shape, his quad has a fluted wing next to the front fins
There’s a TSJ with that exact sequential in it. Thomson’s riding a 5’7" Pavel “Choice” twin keel. BTW: http://www.rainbowsurfboards.com and http://www.greenroom.com/ Good shaping room clips with Pavel (Quad fish and bonzer) and others at rainbowsurfboards.com
Twins can do almost anything you want on a wave… if they are designed well. older style trad twins leave many things wanting. modern variations of the lis style fish are amazing boards to ride. concaves, vees and rolled bottoms are all positive improvments if applied well. one thing we come across regularly is if the board is too light it will not perform as well. fin placement and the foils are very critical as in any board, however due to the size of the keels it can be more critical…
Back in '72 or so, I built a 5’11" twin with outline shape similar to this http://www.swaylocks.com/resources/detail_page.cgi?ID=1837 but with a soft “hex” tail (think diamond with the center pin stretched into a 6" flat). The wide point was possibly a bit further back, midway. I think the tail shape resulted in my getting the fins too far forward. In any event, the board was fairly slow, but one of the (few:-) things it did exceptionally well was to turn nearly straight up the face of the wave, almost “square” off a bottom trim line, even without a lot of speed build-up. (If I was influenced by Lis or other twin builders of the time, it was second hand through my blank supplier and fellow surfers, I was definitely not a follower of mags or movies) That was why I was sort of surprised at lack of vert capability being claimed as a fish characteristic…
-Samiam
pau…aloha and mahalo!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXqRx6lVltg
Fish’n backside
WHOA SHIT CHECK THE LINK LOOK LOOK WHO POSTED THAT CLIP!!!
AND LOOK WHAT ELSE HE POSTED@!!@