I just finished my 5’6 fish and brought it out for “testing” over the weekend. I’m still learning to surf the board but I’ve noticed that for some waves, when going down the line the fins just slip out and just lose their grip. The slippage always occurs when I get up and turn the board ~90 degrees towards the face. When surfing a fish, do you have to always do a bottom turn? That’s what I think will make the fins hold on. I have 9x5 keels and placed the fins 7.5 inches from the tips to the trailing edge, if that helps. its also toed-in .25 inches. I’ve heard that fishes tend to “skate”, is this what everyone talks about? Also, are there any tips on how to surf the fish properly? Thanks.
the problem is likely in your rails. 9x5 fins shouldnt slip out easily if theyre placed only 7" from the tauil. i had the same problem with my first fish, but my recent one has 50/50 rails and another has hard edges but taller fins and a thinner rail.
to surf them, you gotsta keep your weight on the front foot, its very improtnt. from their you do all pumping and turning. if you have to much weight on your backfoot it will either be very sluggish or very fast and too squirly. it takes a few sessions to get it rewired if youve been surfing thrusters for a bit, but once you get it down they are way faster then any other board in smaller surf.
I was having the exact same problem when I was first riding my fish, and found that if I changed my riding style just slightly, I got WAY better edge hold. If you are a snowboarder or skier as well, you already have the carving style you need for your fish. Start your turn real front foot heavy (~80% of your weight on the front foot), then carve thru your turn, finishing it with more of a 50/50 weighting. This is exactly what you do when you wanna make a deep gouge while snowboarding or skiing in hardpack snow. If you exaggerate this style of “follow-through” on your carve, you may find that the board will work well “as is”. Have fun!
Or put a finbox with a removable trailer around 4" tall, and use it to get used to the board, railing for the turns, and maybe keep it on.
If you have hard rails, or thin hard rails, you will spin out without the trailer.
I’m not sure I’m getting this right:
-Are we saying that Hard Rails on a fish are more likely to slip out than soft ones? This sounds kinda odd. I thought Fish rails had to be pretty much in the pulled-down style.
Try putting the fins on like they did originally.No cant and no toe in.Leave the rails soft.Put some roll in the bottom.Surf it off your front foot.For some reason good longboarders seem like they adapt better to fish shapes.Folks that are used to thrusters tend to have a harder time.I dunno…just looks that way to me. RB
Surf off the front foot is great advice. I surfed a twin fin for so long that I have the opposite problem - i need to get myself back on my rear foot now. The little trailing fin in the center that I had on my twinfinner from CI (one of the early/mid 90s ones with glass on side fins) helped quite a bit when you wanted more hold.
Hard edgy rails climb higher, resulting in my chance of suddenly dropping out.
Soft rails never get up that high, water wraps and holds the rail, loosing some responce and the ability to ride high in the first place, making it easier to climb and drop in the tube on steep, fast waves.
I’ve been watching some videos of guys riding fishes and it does seem like they ride heavier with their front foot. They also seem to have a shorter stance, not really having their back foot all the way back. Well, I’ll test it out after turkey day and I’ll let you know how it goes.
The kneeboard fish I`ve built had tucked, breakaway edge rails for smaller, flatter waves. For larger and hollower, powerful surf, I preferred rails that were much more rounded, which tended to stick to the wave face. The latter fish (w/dual low aspect ratio fins) held in extremely well, no matter how critical the wave.