Greeting from the uk, it seems like ages since i’ve been on sways, i hope everything’s good.
I’m about to start on my first longboard project, a 9ft 4" nose rider for a friend of mine, he’s 11 stone.
I’ve already had a good read through lots of previous threads on nose riders, whats good, whats bad and have picked up a general feeling that what’s good is: low nose rocker with increased tail lift, nicely rolled rails and smooth well blended overall shape with a smooth concave in the nose but don’t overdo it.
My question is as my friend has stated he’s interested in using the board when it gets over 6ft, say 10ft faces are these characteristics that make a good nose rider a hinderance when the surf gets bigger and if so should i be suggesting a more all round board with some of the nose riding characteristics. I am intending to go for a rounded pin tail with a 2 plus 1 fin set-up as well.
Again this will be my first longboard so any advice you can give will be much appreciated.
Rounded pintail will be OK. If I were you, I’d make it more pintail than rounded… Also thin pinched rails will hold better in fast waves. And then, it’s not only the board but the guy riding it:
I don’t have the expertise to help you from a design point of view, but I rode a 9’3" Takayama In The Pink during a 5-8’ south swell on Oahu this June and it really impressed me with how well it handled itself.
One day, we got a 6-10’ north swell, so I took it up to Haleiwa, and it was even more fun!
If there’s a noserider to imitate for those conditions, I can’t imagine you could do much better than that board.
I think a perfect example could be Herbie Fletcher and Takuji Masuda. Btw does anybody know whose shaping Herbie’s boards, I’m very interested in a shape for bigger hollower waves.
It takes a lot of skill to ride a traditional heavy noserider in big waves. Even at that you wont do much noseriding. Last year I took my heavy real traditional noserider out in 8ft/10ft faces after meeting up with Tyler Hatzikian and watching him ride. I also studied Butch V in ES at pipeline. Basically angle the takeoff and run to the nose immediately.
It was a blast. But the waves were fat and fun, and i’d only do it at that particular spot. I really woundn’t like to ride more lined up/ hollow waves on one. But a skilled surfer probably could. I wouldn’t sarcrifice noseriding ability for it.
