my two cents: a tiny, wide, flat, thick, quad fish. perfect for skating over sections, releasing in short turns, driving across flat spots & hanging in in steep sections.
A friend of mine has a tiny quad…5’5" or so…and rips it in tiny gutless surf.
For whatever reason, I surf my best in the tiny stuff…knee high and under. My SB “supercharger” with MR twins and a CI “shark tooth” trailer is the best board I’ve ever had in even the most microscopic surf. As shown in the photo below with the GS fin, I didn’t like it all that much…but that all changed with the addition of the shark tooth. It generates speed easily and you can throw it pretty much anywhere at will. Dimensions: 5’10" x 19 x 2 5/16
well you say that but there seem to be a large number of people here having fun on small boards in small surf?
T
Sure, but there are millions of small waves which a very long board can ride but small boards can’t even catch. . . it’s not the number of people riding the boards it’s what the boards can do, and bigger boards rule in smaller waves.
i feel you are on the right track for a short board for nearly impossible to ride waves. during the short time i lived in orlando, when we would drive to the beach, we would surf ANYTHING because of the hour + drive. so i don’t question that these are the waves that you see a great deal of the time.
i’d say 6’2 - 6’4. a big fat floaty fish. keep as much foam as posssible. if you can go 3 " thick or more, do it. carry the thickness out to the rails. keep the nose thick. and wide. you can go very wide at the tips. minimum of 12". i’d suggest soft down rails in the front 2/3 going to hard rails at the last 3rd out the back.i’d use a 3 fin fcs set up. with that you can go to keels or MR type fins or standard thrusters or sidebites. you can use a larger or smaller or no trailer fin as you might want. slight concave under the sidefins or just flat would do.
soft rails, because you want some forgiveness in the chop and white water. he’s a front foot guy, so you want foam up in the front of the board. he should be surfing this with a forward stance, front foot about 18" to 24" back from the nose. when the wave gets into that last little section just before closeout he could shuffle up a bit and hang 5.
of course the board will work in over knee high surf as well. the width and thickness and soft rails might start giving some problems in overhead waves.
The board is at the glasser’s finally. I banged it out over the weekend. Stoked.
I did not take build pics as I was covered in foam snow. lo siento.
The board came out more or less as discussed above.
L: 6’2’’
W: 23.5"
T: 2.5’’
Rail profile: Hard down in the tail third transitioning to down rail with small radius tucked edge in front two thirds–goes a little more 50/50 in the last 6 inches towards nose. tucked edge remains crisp.
Bottom: flat with a subtle single concave beginning just fore of the front foot area and ending about 4 inches fore of the swallow ‘crack’. Max concave depth 1/8’’ just in front of fins.
Fin set up: Twinzer. Primary fin at 8’’ and 1 1/8’’ off rail, toed 1.5’’ outside nose; leading vane over laps the primary fin by 1/4’’ and is spaced 1 1/4 inch railward of primary fin, toe in is parallel to primary.
Tail rocker: 1 3/8’’
Nose rocker: 4’’
Finished weight: we’ll see. it should be pretty light. glassing will be 6 bottom, 2x6 deck, S cloth; greenroom epoxy resin
I’ll post up some finished detail pics on hohar when she’s done and link them here.
thanks again for every body’s feedback. hopefully we can provide some ride report info within a few weeks.
This might be a little off topic but I’ll go on anyway. I’m a Midwest wakesurfer. We generally surf knee to waist high wakes at about 10 mph. Wakesurfers tend to ride smaller boards than coastal surfers. I think that for any given board length, our wakesurf boards are generally wider though.
One thing I do regularly is ride a tinnie-tiny skim like wakesurf board. The board is a Trick Boardz Velocity blem. The board is about 2 inches more narrow than normal hence the blem status. The board is grossly undersized for my 220 pound frame. In order to ride this board I slow the wakeboat down to 8 to 8.5 mph. At that speed the wake gets pretty small and mushy. I posted a thread with pictures on Wake World Online after riding this board late in ’06. Here’s a link to the thread: http://www.wakeworld.com/MB/Discus/messages/87668/375860.html?1160099951
I’ve ridden a board that is even smaller than the board in the in the WW post. When riding undersized boards I have an unfair advantage over coastal surfers. I use a boat and a tow rope to get on plane. Once on plane I can surf without a rope nearly forever. Except for the more extreme big wave tow in surfing coastal surfers must have a larger board with good floatation to paddle and catch a wave.
If you don’t have to paddle and catch a wave then I think you can dramatically drop the size and thickness of the boards you are riding. Riding the undersized board at lower speeds is a unique experience. The board I ride loosens up dramatically under these conditions. If you had a jet ski to pull your surfer up then I think that you could attempt these reductions.