Me + Twin keel + Backhand = Frustration

Ok, i’ve had my fish quite a while now, and frontside, man i love it!. Backside, however, it doesnt love me. After i supercharged it, i had a couple of really good backhands surfs on it, but since then, i keep wiping out. What happens is, i catch the wave, get to my feet fine, but then the board turns very fast into the face of the wave, and buries itself in the face. So hard that it just stops, and i get pushed through the back of the wave, arse first!!!. I might stick maybe 2 out of 10 waves on my backhand, and the ones i do make, i seem to just end up high lining, no big turns like frontside. It’s gettin to be a pain. So, what do you guys think im doing wrong??. Maybe i should try to switch foot, that would be cool haha

may or may not be related but,…

on a decent day. head to head and a half, left and right walls, my center fin on my standard

thruster fell out… i had no replacement so i kept surfing.

frontside, was fine. definitely different but lot’s of fun.

backside however, was just as you describe. on a bottom turn, the board would bury itself and eject

me right into the face. i had to go really lightfooted and nurse my backside bottom turn. i’m

goofyfoot and as i was making my bottom turn, i would feel water shooting up my right wetsuit

leg on the outside of my leg.

like i said, the only way i got around it was to really be sensitive on my bottom turn. i pretty

much resolved to going frontside the rest of the day.

You might try compressing really low & nursing it a bit. Many people throw a whole lot more power into a backhand bottom turn and its much easier to compress with the heel than the toes. Try easing up on the power a bit and let the fins generate the speed from the turn for you.

The real solution is to retrofit some boxes and convert to quad.

I had similiar issue riding my quad for the first time. On a thruster I typically move a bit forward on the board for a high in the pocket, section burning speed line pump

With the quad, backside high on the face, first pump often resulted in immediate faceplant, quite frustrating. I eventually found that I had to make sure the heel of my back foot was not over the two rail fins in this situation. Faired much better backside when I concentrated on pushing off the finless tail. I guess all that fin area on the rail + cant + toe combined with concentrated heel pressure and the angle of the wave face yadda yadda yadda … But works great on the mirror (frontside cutbacks) because you’re turning ‘down’ into the wave face. jeez does that make any sense

Thanks mate, maybe im trying to push it too hard. I’ll try the softly softly approach next time.

Burnsie, spot on man! Backside lot more power as yer straighter yer legs - but then yer flat as it spins oot and yer back leg striaghtents out…

COG. Know where it is.

Wow, that was fast!. When i typed a response for the first reply, there was only one. Thanks a lot guys. So, a pretty common theme here is to nurse the bottom turn, ok, will try it out.

I still do that on my thrusters . … Working on my backside . . . I found out, if i scoot forward, and plant my front foot further down that helps . . . I think its drawing out my bottom turn longer . . .

Also working on eliminating the pig dog while shortboarding . . . its a carry over from my longboard . . . and where I surf its definitely not like pipe.

moove your backside heel fin back 3/8"… asymetrical fin setups work extremly well on twins and keels

  1. Check your foot position. If you watch most pros they’ll have their front foot off center towards their heelside rail when surfing backside. This’ll help you get a little more leverage on your heelside, more so for barrels and less if you plan on doing turns. Twin keels generally being wider I would think this applies more so (not more so as in your foot more towards the rail, but more so in whether it should be applied).

  2. MOST IMPORTANT - open up your shoulders to the wave when doing your bottom turn. The best way to do this is to try and reach behind you and touch the wave face while turning. You don’t want to lay back to achieve this, it’s more like sitting back,keep your knees bent and bend at the waist ???Kind of hard to explain. Turning your front foot 45 degrees in comparison to the stringer will make it easier to open up your body.

With a thruster I’d say that 80% of pressure will end up on the back foot. This will put you up into the lip because the toe in of you rail fin, rocker and the curve of your outline will turn your board in that direction by pressure alone. Since on a keel there is only a rail fin with little toe in, usually a straighter outline and less rocker different techniques are needed. To go at the lip aggressively you will have to pivot around the rail fin. The best way I’ve found to do this is:

  1. Fade out into the flats like any bottom turn, the more vert you want the further you’ll fade into the flats.

  2. Engage the rail with slight pressure even on both feet

  3. While opening up your hips apply more pressure to your back foot, this should somewhat disengage the front foot area of the heelside rail. This in unison with opening your hips should cause your board to pivot around the fin. Too much pressure will cause you to spin out (once you get it more dialed you’ll be able to push harder off the bottom).

  4. Now put more weight back to your front foot to re-engage the rail.

  5. Now depending on the line you chose, through buckets or switch rails and do a huge smoothie!!! :0)

As you practice this will become a smooth motion and you’ll learn to do it without losing too much speed.

If the waves are small you’re better off angling your take off and doing a cuttie IMO

Enjoy the mastery of turning a board made to go in straight lines!! It’ll take some time.

damn, fosta, that post made me want to surf! Or paint it on canvas and hang it on a wall.

I may be kind of an aesthete, but that was some of the best shit I’ve read since the TSJ Stubby article. Real art.

greg

Quote:

damn, fosta, that post made me want to surf! Or paint it on canvas and hang it on a wall.

I may be kind of an aesthete, but that was some of the best shit I’ve read since the TSJ Stubby article. Real art.

greg

Greg,

Thanks I appreciate your kind words.

My vote is that you surf; AND paint it on a canvas and hang it on a wall.

Be sure to take photos of both and share them here.

fosta

I’m going to laminate fostachilds advice into the deck of my next board! good stuff, as jankow says, it make me want to go out and try it immediately.

Great piece of advice… Since I had the same problem, I started leaving the twin keel home when heading to a backhand wave, prefering to it a single or bonzer3… I’ll defenitely have to give a go at your technique

Thanjks mate

Quote:
Ok, i've had my fish quite a while now, and frontside, man i love it!. Backside, however, it doesnt love me. After i supercharged it, i had a couple of really good backhands surfs on it, but since then, i keep wiping out. What happens is, i catch the wave, get to my feet fine, but then the board turns very fast into the face of the wave, and buries itself in the face. So hard that it just stops, and i get pushed through the back of the wave, arse first!!!!. I might stick maybe 2 out of 10 waves on my backhand, and the ones i do make, i seem to just end up high lining, no big turns like frontside. It's gettin to be a pain. So, what do you guys think im doing wrong??. Maybe i should try to switch foot, that would be cool haha

Most ills of this sort are cured by moving your rear foot more towards the backhand rail (the inside rail when turning backhand). EVERY good surfer does this. I found that if I forced myself to surf a good backhand wave over and over I would do this instinctively.

hth

Gosh, sounds like fun. I love Keel fins.

Nothing better than taking off down a wave and having to remember where to put you feet, or having to dance around on the board to get set up for a backhand cut back.

Why not let that bottom turn out a bit at the bottom, so you can project that bottom turn straight up to the lip…oh wait, thats the advise for the tri-fin set up.

advise for the keel fish: Just take off on the wave in the direction you intend to go, then wiggle so it looks like your moving. No need to turn, keel fishes aren’t really intended for that. But they are pretty and retro.

there are those who would call this advice blasphemy. install 2 fcs cups for a trailer fin. insert trailer fin. paddle out and ride. tail quits breaking loose. big fun.

Quote:

Gosh, sounds like fun. I love Keel fins.

Nothing better than taking off down a wave and having to remember where to put you feet, or having to dance around on the board to get set up for a backhand cut back.

Why not let that bottom turn out a bit at the bottom, so you can project that bottom turn straight up to the lip…oh wait, thats the advise for the tri-fin set up.

advise for the keel fish: Just take off on the wave in the direction you intend to go, then wiggle so it looks like your moving. No need to turn, keel fishes aren’t really intended for that. But they are pretty and retro.

Wow resinhead…….pretty much hit the nail on the head didn’t you, I’m sure your advice will be of immense value to beerfan’s problem.

No dancing involved if you do it right, though there may be some dancing while you try to figure it out. However, just like anything it’s gonna take practice. Pretty much every movement you or I, or anybody for that matter, make on a surfboard had to think about it before it became “natural”. It’s not exactly engrained in our DNA how to fly across walls of water, but we make it work don’t we?

So I guess in the future I’ll know not to send someone your way when looking for help on their surfing technique, but I WILL know where to send someone looking for a lesson in sarcasm.

fosta

i dont do a bottom turn on takeoff on a fish backhand

what i do sometimes is stand up with both feet kinda in the centre and then step back on to the tail

put my weight over my front knee and get a high line trim

when the speeds there

thats when i do a bottom turn

basically with fish on backhand keep a high line off the drop

keep your weight forward over your knee

and enjoy it for what it is

if you want a back fin get a thruster

if i switch boards from thruster to fish my feet are always too far back for the fish and visa versa switching back

and i need a few waves to adjust foot position to get the drive and trim

once you got some speed up then you can start putting the thing vert

twin keels are great for what they are

surfing fat walls and shifty beach breaks

I can’t add more backside advise than has already been given. I ride a keeled fished 90 percent of my surfs and enjoy surfing it backside. Got a couple of fun ones this morning. I know very good surfers that cannot ride a fish or simply do not like the way they ride. I also see guys hitting the lip on their fishes( I’m not one of them. Still lost in the seventies.) front and backside. That being said if hitting the lip is your thing a keeled fish probably isn’t the best choice. I think of them as down the line speed machines.

Humor and sarcasm is unkind and in bad taste. I find it so offensive when discussing a topic as serious as surfing. Especially, one who is keeled-backside-challenged. I’m f…ing kidding yah’all! Resin, keep the humor and sarcasm coming! There is wisdom in it when you read between the lines. Or not. Mike