www.hydrodynamica.com- there’s a new trailer up and towards the end some amazing paipo riding and casper the pocket calculator. May be worth your attention if odd surfboards and great surfboard riding are of interest…
CLASS ACT these guys are layin’it down
the plypo guys are ninimalist kings!!!
and standup! …?
eddie foy couldn’t a done more
oh joy to the world
these aint toys
and they are the boys
summer soon gone
but the livin goes on
while ol’ men labor the execution of
the illusion of perfection
youthfull exhuberance is the factor respectable
and I wanna view this film…
yes I surely do.
even Though I dont want a fish.
…ambrose…
Aw yeah!!!
Thanks for the heads up, KG
As hyped as it is I’m soo looking forward to seeing that movie. Thats incredible surfing in the clip. Makes me want to go 6" shorter on my fish!
I think I half recognise one of those breaks. its south of La Jolla with the houses (mansions) backing onto the foreshore. Whats it called ?
Too bad they didn’t provide a link to contact them as the equation for lift (“My Next Board…”) contains an error.
thanks for posting that. it’s been a long time coming but it’ll be worth the wait i’m sure.
I realise I’ll probably be hung , drawn and quartered for expressing this opinion but I’ve been stewing on this for awhile and it’s time it went public.
This whole Hydrodynamica/fish hype fest (presented so cannily in a soul surfing guise) is a total joke.
I’ve watched the whole thing develop and seen these guys come through here now for a few years. I’ve watched them take a good local surfer (Dan thompson) and turn him into a hero because he could actually ride these things (though nowhere near as good as he can ride his thrusters). Myself, Brocky, GG have watched these guys out surfing the point on th fishes and all come to the same conclusion: they don’t work. They work for mediocre surfers in mediocre waves but good surfers in good waves are constantly fighting the board: they catch, hang and track at the top unless the board is just allowed to run on it’s inside rail and fin.
Rasta is another who is building a career around crueling his surfing because it’s highly fashionable and therefore worth money to Billabong for him to be riding fishes. I surfed with him recently at Ballina in sucky good quality lefts and he was riding a hawaiian shaped conventional shortboard…totally ripping.
This design has severe limitations, it’s interesting to watch Dan and Van Straalen start to pull their nose and tail widths in to try and counteract the tracking and sticking and soon hey presto, jeez that looks like a modern shortboard outline.
It’s also intersting to note that around here despite dan’s presence in the local lineups and the semi-regular hype from Hydrodynamica guys aren’t riding them because they don’t work that well.
There are plenty of solutions to the problem of increasing volume/wave catching/ glide etc etc that work a hell of a lot better than fishes yet the marketing of fish riding as some sort of cult has been incredibly successful.
I’m amazed at how many international surfers are turning up at the point with these fishes in their hire cars and then going out there and struggling on their equipment. I’ve watched this closely with my own eyes and thought is this some kind of collective insanity going on here. Don’t believe the hype guys. Steve
I love mine. It’s a blast to ride, goes fast as hell. Sure, I have to use the rail. So what. I still use my thruster if I feel like getting a workout. Sometimes I’m on my longboard, too.
I agree with Lennox on most of what he just posted. There is more ugly, lame fish riding going on worldwide than you can shake a stick at. Especially at the points. But…people are after the FEELING. The feeling, not the visual. If you try and ride the boards like a thruster you will look like you’re fighting it as Lennox describes. Ride a fish as a fish should be ridden. On waves that they work on.
Stick to that application and they are a thing of beauty, for both the rider and the spectator.
There is way more UGLY THRUSTER surfing going on today than ever.I would add that more fish than ever are poorly designed just as in the seventies. I wish the trend would end too though
The left tube, south of the Windansea break, is Big Rock. Creativley named after the big rock that sticks out of the water.
I beg to differ a bit! Lotsa guys don’t know how to handle fish at first. It takes some of us a year or more to figure it out. I’ve seen very skilled dudes totally milk their turns and surf like a bobble head! However, when you see someone surf one well - watch Kirk of Kirkshapes surf the Hook in Santa Cruz, he flows, man! - the fish is the shizee. And besides, we’ve all seen loads of dudes sucking on the thruster in the past 15 years, we just don’t always admit it!
You are dead on correct Lennox76. I, however, am a medicore surfer and love my fish. I love to surf my fish in open faced point surf. It does allow me to surf better in those types of conditions than I would on a smaller, more modern board. I surf to have as much fun as I can, trends be damned.
The fish design is the be-all-end-all design no more than any other shape - pick the right board for the waves at hand and you’ll always be stoked. I wouldn’t surf my fish in double overhead barrells just as I wouldn’t surf my 6’"10 in waist high mush.
I have found my traditional planshaped fish apt to “catch” or feel slow to come around on re-entries and therefore stick to riding it in a smooth flow enjoying its speed from the pumps and arcing cutbacks.
Most of the people I see around here do make a hash of riding them and I’d say being brought up on thrusters isn’t going to help them any.
Luckily I am old enough to have surfed single fins before thrusters took over and reckon this is an advantage style wise.
The limitations of the traditional fish design have been negated for me by Dick Van Straalen’s rocket fish design. As you said, the pulled in nose, but the rail line in the tail is still quite straight and the thing that I enjoy is not suffering lower back pain which thrusters seem to give me these days.
Don’t know why (body torque?) but I can barely walk after surfing them whereas I have a DVS and a traditional fish and absolutely no problem.
I also realise that I can’t surf as I could when I was 25 (Now 44) and so riding boards which have great down the line speed and still have the looseness to feel the power of a wave makes for a better surfing experience than trying to keep up with the groms.
So now I may fade my bottom turn more and try to get a big bottom turn to get a tonne of speed to bank off the wall and rather than a decade ago trying to bottom turn to come back up the face for a big vertical re-entry.
Both feel really good but just exploring different places on wave faces. Still stoked.
The other good thing about fish for me is there paddling ease. Much less frustration in a surf being able to get into waves earlier rather than getting pitched by lips when one is a little slow getting to the feet. The DVS with its pulled in nose/rocker is good for the late take offs so fun in beachbreaks as well.
Fashion goes round in circles and I suppose the surfing movement isn’t going to be any different by the look of things.
Fun to have done retro when it was all actually happening the first time though.
nah i disagree
watching the average wavehumper on the thruster makes mewanna spew
love the cruizey stlye and flow bro
seen one pro catch a wave
seen em all
same board same turns same same same cloths
same sunnies
roger that, silly. I agree wichu completely
It takes guts to be critical of such a popular design, kudos for that. Even though I spend a lot
of time on a fish, I agree with you to some extent. A lot of the problems you see are caused
by guys riding fish that are too big, or too thick, or both. A small, thin fish doesn’t hang up, holds
a rail better, and is closer to the original intent of the design. It is a borrowed kneeboard design,
after all.
And they’re certainly not for everybody; died-in-the-wool thruster riders seem to have a really
hard time ‘‘getting it’’. If you want to go vertical, they’re not the best choice. In powerful surf, ditto.
But for me, they’re something like a fountain of youth. I rode and shaped fishes back in the day,
and returning to them has rejuvenated my surfing. Over the last 3 years, my fish have gotten smaller
and smaller ‘til I’m now on a 5’9’’ that’s just over 2 1/4’’ thick. On a dribbly but lined up waist to chest
day a couple of weeks ago, my best friend told me I was surfing better than he’d seen in 20 years.
At 52, that’s about the best news you can hear.
Mike
Quote:
the thing that I enjoy is not suffering lower back pain which thrusters seem to give me these days. Don't know why (body torque?) but I can barely walk after surfing them whereas I have a DVS and a traditional fish and absolutely no problem.
Quote:
The other good thing about fish for me is there paddling ease.
I think you answered your own question there. Thrusters (except the big fat “old dude” ones) are thin, sinkers and you have to hold a fairly extreme hyperextension of your low back to paddle them. Fish float higher so no need for the big arch hence your back is much happier.
(I’m not a real doctor…I just play one at work!)
MD,
What are your dims?
g
Quote:
MD,
What are your dims?
g
I’m 5’11 and 150 lbs.