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I can’t catch waves on my new fish!!!
It gets up to speed OK but then seems to get stuck at the top of the wave and wont drop in!!!
Once I do get it down the face it is fine if not great. Its just the wierd getting stuck at the top thing.
This is the third fish I have made.
5’8"-16.75"-21"-17"-10"(across
tail) rocker is 4" or less at nose and 2" max in tail. Slight single to
double V Thickness is 2.75"ish and fairly even with not too thin 60/40 rails
Is it rocker ?? what.
maybe when you takeoff, try pushing the nose down the wave face and throwing your momentum down the face too. sometimes pushing down the face tilted onto the rail helps too. left rail if you're going left and right if you're going right. kinda do the opposite of what you would do if you were trying to avoid pearling... this sometimes helps me. HTH
I've been experiencing a bit of the same with my 6'8" retro fish. Since I've been away from surfing for a long while, I attribute some of this to being out of shape. But some, I suspect, is from too much thickness/buoyancy in the nose. And a bit much rocker.
edited to add: chrisp was answering the same time I was! I agree with what he says - I really have to p-u-s-h the nose down when I pop up. Ooh, but I love that feeling when the board "comes alive" at the instant you pop up!
I’m tempted to say rocker… Did you use a fish blank? Did you keep the natural rocker, or tweak it? Also, I’m not sure what kind of bottom you’re describing. Can you give more details??
It’s hard to push a wide nose through the lip the way you can with a shortboard. I always have to take an extra stroke or two in order to get a wide board into transition.
I also think a 4/2 rocker on a 5-8 length involves a steeper angle of entry/exit for your transitions than it would if the length were longer. In combination with your length/widths and a mushy wave that could make for a tricky combination. I used 4/2 on a 7ft egg I built for a friend of mine - very average skills - for use as his daily driver and I don’t think he’s ever pearled it yet. A while back ACE posted up an 8ft Simm-type board (he calls it the Squish) with his 6-fin setup and he used 4/2 for that.
I use much shorter rockers for fishies. I used a 3.25/1.5 for a 5-5 quad fishie with widths similar to your’s and that board is super loose relative to its width, almost too loose. I keep waffling on whether to change the cant on the drive fin to make it more upright but the rail-to-rail action is so lively that I don’t want to mess with it.
…how can … without knowing at the very least your height/weight, how much experience/how well you surf, type of waves and so on … even then it’s still mostly guesswork.
OK every one thanks for the replies.
I have only just logged back on and will probably have lost all your helps now !!!
Some more info is needed.
I am 5’10" - 11stone - surfing for 42 years out of 57.
I ride steep beachbreaks up to overhead quite well, not a novice.
It is not the pushing down on the nose thing, it is just that as the board starts to catch the wave the nose seems to actually lift up and the board levels off instead of pointing down the wave face.
I know it sounds wierd.
I am sort of blaming the nose rocker combined with the single concave that I perhaps pulled too far towards the nose.
I suppose really it is time to sell on and build another !!!
uhmmmm- more nose rocker than you need, but definitely more tail rocker than you need, the tell-tale on that being how the nose gets pulled up as you start getting waterflow along the bottom. What's happening is not the nose going up so much as the tail is being pulled down.
Meanwhile - you might want to be a bit further forward on the board when going for waves. And angle your takeoff a little more, see if that helps.
Again, if you were to build another one, I'd suggest a lot less rocker - see http://www.foamez.com/us-blanks-510rp-fish-blank-p-718.html for mebbe some useful info.
hope that's of use
doc...
Try being as far forward as you can. I have a 5’10 I made that has a similar problem. The blank was stingerless and I thought I could alter it when I glassed it but my glassing racks are a little more spread out than my shaping racks, so it ended up being 3" of nose rocker and 3" of tail rocker.
I either have to be right where the wave breaks or I have to paddle much harder and be further up on the board. I’ll paddle out further back, then when it’s time to catch waves, I move as far up as I can.
Another thing I’ll do on most of my boards is to stand up right away. Sometimes you can get into the wave by standing up really early. Almost like dropping into a skateboard ramp. Of course there are the times when you stand up and the wave rolls under you and you look pretty silly, but I’ve made a lot of late drops with this technique.
doc thanks for reply, yeah I must say I wondered about the tail rocker.
I guess its acting a little like the tail rocker i put in my noseriders by pulling the tail down,in, and lifting the nose. I had hoped though that as ‘proper’ shortboards have tons of tail rocker it would be OK but i guess with the relatively low nose rocker it is all actong more like the noserider!!!
I must say though that for a fish it goes pretty vertical (well my idea of vertical anyway)
I have tried moving further forward on the board but it becomes too easy to pearl. I think I must have a slightly wierd thickness distribution too. The one before this had a thinner nose and I did indeed lay further up the board and it caught waves really easy but I put much too thick rails on it and hated it.
I suppose it is time to start again !!!
Thanks all.
Pictures?
Side view to show rocker and foil thickness.
What are your dimentions and style of board you like to ride?
I will send you a plan for your next build if you like?
Surfding
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doc thanks for reply, yeah I must say I wondered about the tail rocker.
I guess its acting a little like the tail rocker i put in my noseriders by pulling the tail down,in, and lifting the nose. I had hoped though that as 'proper' shortboards have tons of tail rocker it would be OK but i guess with the relatively low nose rocker it is all actong more like the noserider!!!
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Ah! I kinda thought you might have thrown in a more or less standard shortboard/thruster tail rocker. And you've got the idea of what it's doing perfectly, picking the nose up like a noserider should.
But with that wider tail and shorter length, it's really pulling the nose way up. On a regular thruster, it's much narrower at the tail, so the effect isn't so ferocious.
[quote="$1"]
I must say though that for a fish it goes pretty vertical (well my idea of vertical anyway)
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Oh yeah, once it's going, I'd imagine it wants to turn like you read about. Indeed, it's probably happiest in sharply curved parts of the wave.
[quote="$1"]
I have tried moving further forward on the board but it becomes too easy to pearl. I think I must have a slightly wierd thickness distribution too. The one before this had a thinner nose and I did indeed lay further up the board and it caught waves really easy but I put much too thick rails on it and hated it.
I suppose it is time to start again !!!
Thanks all.
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Well, one more thing to try before you make it into a shelf. Remember 'no paddle takeoffs'? This might be a very good candidate for those, where you're basicly letting floatation and then gravity catch the wave for you. You're then going for it on a steep part of the wave, right in the board's comfort zone. There's always a way.
And while playing with that, yep, you could build something with more of a classic Lis or Frye fish rocker, that is just about none from around the midpoint back.
Good luck - I've had boards that I just couldn't get the hang of. One, well, I spent an afternoon throwing it into the shorebreak, hoping the $%&^# would break. Never figured that one out and wound up taking it back to the shop.
doc...
‘No paddle take offs’ ???
yeah, I remember them but now days they tend to become ‘no paddle take downs’ ha ha.
I think i will just keep playing untill spring then try less extreme rocker in the rear half.
Thanks all.
I've owned and surfed alot of boards that work like that
usually it's because its too short, and too fat(thick)
too wide up front(that causes the lift), wrong bottom and the wrong rocker for all of the above.
The only way around it is to use the classic no paddle or jam the tail into the face at the last minute style of take off.
If it's short enough then you shouldn't have too much problems going over that late
just make sure that you have your foot and weight on the tail as you go over the falls and pick your line early because you won't have much time to think once you hit the bottom.
Once you get in usually these boards go just fine like you said
you just need to change your entry technique more like a high performance potato chip
'**usually it’s because its too short, and too fat(thick) **
too wide up front(that causes the lift), wrong bottom and the wrong rocker for all of the above.’
well, I can only blame myself for all of the above, but yeah it sounds like i have just got to alter my take off technique a bit. Talk about trying to teach an old dog new tricks. it will take this old dog soooooome time i can tell you.
oh to be fair to the board though the last time i was in which prompted the post there was a pretty strong offshore (force 5 maybe) which obviously doesn’t help ha ha
