My New Asym From George Gall at PlusOne

General Discussion
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I was over due for some foot surgery, but had planned to squeeze in a last minute trip with some friends to El Salvador, land of the rights, as they say.  I am a goofy foot.  And this is my story.

 

I met George Gall about 5 years ago while on a “listening tour” of Southern California to gather information that would help me understand why I was such a lame board builder.  It didn’t work out, but George and I stayed in touch and I always thought I should get a custom board from him, since he was smart guy and a fellow engineer.  And he had his own shaping machine, and his boards were just so good, and he know so much about materials and shape and design.  As Bill Thrailkill told me, he is the complete package.

 

Well, I later learned that George was into Asymmetric designs and I had been dabbling in it myself, so putting 2 and 2 together (El Salvador backhands + George’s Asym’s)  I had a message from God.

 

I called George and he went into high gear and built this crazy unreal board in about 3 weeks and shipped it to me in time for the trip.  (That was amazing in and of itself.)  I’m going to depend on George to explain it all, but just wow.  It is a thruster in the sense that there are three fins, but all three fins are sized different.   And placed differently.   I don’t know how he placed the fins, since the Fusion boxes are all over the map.  And although I could not actually feel the difference, I put the trac pad off to the strong side just to show George I was “all in”.  But I did seriously feel the asym difference in the water.  Normal on the front side, significant backside advantage.  (Data point for those of you who don’t understand:  the board goes both ways,  it just gives a little extra backside advantage).

 

When we got to our hotel in El Salvador, I had arranged for one of my more open minded friends to video me opening my board bag and showing the other guys the board for the first time.  They had no idea what was coming.  The reaction bordered on unbelief, disgust and anger.  Maybe betrayal.  I was laughing so hard I couldn’t put my fins in.  One of the guys from the hotel came over and started putting my fins in, but when he saw all three fins were different he shrugged and gave up.  I have never laughed so hard.

 

So how did it ride?  Beyond my high expectations.  It was consistently head high and the sets were easily well OH.  All backside, all point break all just reeling. IOW, great testing conditions.  Without exaggeration, my buds said my surfing was never better.  Nunca mejor, in Espanol.    These are the same guys disgusted with the board.

 

It is 6-4 by 6-2 on the heel side.  It would probably be about a 6-6 plus if it had a nose.  I like the chopped nose because I can reach up and push down for those minor duck dives.  You will have to ask George to explain the bottom.  There is a lot going on down there, but I don’t know what.

 

I take as the measure of success this little thought:  Most of the time I was in the water not riding waves, I was thinking about how all my favorite boards needed to be rebuilt  in Asym. 

 

George is too modest to tell you, but he has been invited to shape an Asym at the up coming Sacred Craft in October.  Mr. Eckstrom has apparently personally blessed this latest board and set it up for George.  I am coming out to watch and to tell everyone that George is my friend and personal shaper.  That should get me a lot of free beer and offers from hot chicks.

 

Seriously, guys, this is the state of the art.  George has gone beyond the offset round tail, beyond the fish, and built this strange board for me and a few others. 

 

Here are some pics.  Notice the fin position and the bottom rail tuck. 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a lot of work yet to do on fin trials.  But I can't wait to get back in the water with this thing.  Such a great board.

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Cool!  great board, great story

love to try it out (if I had the cash, I'd be a serious collector of custom boards!)

is sacred craft gonna be in Ventura in Oct.?

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I’d like to try it too but I would have to go switch foot and I am sure it couldn’t overcome my handicaps.

A land of long rights sounds like my idea of heaven. Before I go to Gnaraloo each year i don’t look forward to all the backhand riding but after a few days it almost seem preferable. An oppositie board like yours could be the go.

4

Thats cool, really like the look of it, interesting fin positioning too, im looking forward to making myself another asym after my first one went pretty good so keen to hear more ride reports on fin setups and sizes…

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Hi Greg -

Good report on a nice board.  I learn something new every day I'm on this site.  Everything you say flys in the face of everything I thought I knew about asymmetricals.  I would have thought the 'longer' side would be opposite.

Sounds like you got some fantastic waves in which to test it!

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I think sacred craft is Oct 8 and 9.

Nocean, I’d love to see your asym.  I’ve posted mine somewhere around here.

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Hi Greg, I have posted it elsewhere but heres a pic of the bottom, Id like to make another and tone it down a bit:) By that I mean just have the toeside rail a couple of inches longer and do a Quad setup both sides but staggered if you know what I mean, but that central fin looks really interesting on yours…

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That is  great looking board.  Nicely done.  My round tail asym has staggered quad fins, and while I like it and understand it ( mostly), it doesn’t have the feel that George’s crazy thruster has.  And I am not a thruster fan.  I had to swallow deep when George pitched this setup to me.  But very glad I did.  You noticed the offset center fin?  Just wrong on so many levels.  Ha.  But obviously works.

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…all cool: the board, the shaper and the story. +1 is one of the good designers we have in this forum.

 

-I want to know the functionality (backhand) when performing a cutback; I do not see how the longer side can help to do that…(backhand not fronthand roundhouse cbacks)

Yes, I really see how the shorter side can help backhand, but Im interested in some particular moves in that bhand attack

 

thanks

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Reverb, the long side is really normal in length.  Not really long.  It is just longer than the other side which is shorter than normal with maybe a little more curve as well.  So all in all, the so-called “long side” is built like your normal shortboard.  Yes, there is some other molecular structure in there (concaves, fin placement and toe and splay), but I’m not skilled enough to pick up on those subtlies.

hope that helps

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Hey Greg.

I really like that board as well as the great srory and review… I’m working on one now so I’m stoked to see asym’s of any kind…

Hey  Nocean,   I like yours too , looks great…  .Btw. … I’ve always liked looking at your logo  lam. … What’s it mean… Is it your initials?

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As long as the trailer is parallel to the stringer, I think I get it…

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As long as the trailer is parallel to the stringer, I think I get it...

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Well, I don't get it - not only does it not look parallel to the stringer (to me), it doesn't look like a trailer fin either - it looks like a rail fin!  Am I hallucinating?

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…well, in that way of thinking, a pronounced diamond tail will be better due to both outlines are shorter.

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[quote="$1"]

...well, in that way of thinking, a pronounced diamond tail will be better due to both outlines are shorter.

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That's a good point, I'm thinking the big difference would be the reduced area in the outline of the backside tail along with additional curve. I've made a couple of asymmetricals for myself and love both of them. They exceeded everything I hoped they would do performance-wise, loose, fast, very carvy boards. Mine are more of the mini-sims variety, so in that vein, I made a board more akin to the mini-sims and was really disappointed. It just doesn't go the same, and turns on my heelside rail really don't feel as good as they do on the asymmetricals.

By the way, Greg, that's a really cool looking stick, gonna have to give a shape like that a go eventually!

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Very nice…

I’ve been doing lot’s of experimenting with my 4-way boxes and some different fins…  I’ll write up details some day soon -

The short of it is: I’ve built asym board w/asym fin set ups, but the difference in ride I feel by just doing asym fin set up - size, toe, cant…  has blown my mind.  Such noticeable differences just by changing the cant on one rear fin…  Sorry for the mini “hi jack.”

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Thanks Surfthis,  I gave George a blank sheet of paper.  I just wrote the check.   But I am really smitten, as you can tell.

 

TaylorO,  couldn’t agree more.  Please post some pics.

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"You noticed the offset center fin?  Just wrong on so many levels."

Hi Greg -

I have a couple of old longboards with offset fins.  Likely for entirely different reasons than yours but nothing wrong at all.  Apologies to those who've seen these before.

PS - Was Huckleberry correct on the one-side flat (rail fin) center fin viewpoint?

 

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Hi Greg,

 

Stoked to see you post this, I've had several people on the board who are pretty surprised/excited

as well.  The center fin is offset intentionally, it is not parallel with the stringer, it has 1.5 degrees of

tilt, favoring the offset side.

 

I am pretty excited about the concept, and this particular board goes quite well.  At the beginning I

was skeptical thinking a "normal" board could be made to feel the way this board does, so why bother,

now I don't think so.  I will judge a board by how well it does a backside bottom turn and a committed

frontside cutback-  this board excels.  Unlike what Carl was doing working with RK, the rockers are the

opposite of his approach.  He has been super stoked on the design however and was totally in tune

with all the little details.  Ekstrom checked out your board for quite a while, he was that stoked, I actually

left the room and came back and he was still checking it.  I should mention that rather than making the

Simmons concept and using quad variants, I wanted to do a thruster to get maximum vertical performance,

which the board does quite well and almost by itself (less effort.)   I am not saying that your board is

obsolete by any stretch Greg, but I've got two other derivatives that are showing a lot of promise.

 

I was hesitant about showing this board because I did not want to "pollute" the creative minds here

(and I really like what I've seen,) as there are so many ways to make a board,  once you let go of symmetry.

 

There are a ton of aspects to this board and I cannot claim most of it.  My partner Joe Virgilio came up

with the outline, and the squared nose, there are reasons for them.  We work with Maurice Cole quite a bit

and he really opened up the approach of looking at the multiple bottom rockers and basically seeing

bottom contours as by-products of getting the desired rockers.  Carl has given a lot of his ideas

quite freely and his rationale for making "an uneven board" seem both pretty solid and intriguing.  There

are several other shapers involved and we've had quite a few riders on them from broad ability levels.

The reactions have been consistent. 

 

What I first noticed with the A_Symm was that they paddle faster than any equivalent-sized board. 

I've also found they are generally faster than most boards I've ridden (ridden some FAST boards working

with MC.)

I do not have video yet or any performance measurements, but the boards feel like they gain speed in

turns, rarely stalling when switching weight to the other rail.  Continuously going, good energy retention.

 

I don't have theories why this is so, but my wild guess is that the fins do not fight one-another somehow. 

I think maybe that symmetric thruster fins perhaps generate some forces against one-another.  After

building some finless boards, I am getting convinced certain fin configs are "draggier" than others.

Dunno for sure.

 

Greg, if somehow you could post a view sighting the board from the tail looking at the 3 different rockers

involved that would save a ton of words trying to explain it.  Also, you've got to check the board out from

the side, across the bottom, holding it at the widepoint and look along the length of the board and see the

different rockers that way, you may be a bit surprised.  I wished I could post pics of my personal board on

here, they keep coming out too small...  I loaned my board to a good friend who is a very good surfer, won't

give it back and I hear he's been loaning it to others... ...again the reactions have been positive.

*if any of you see someone riding a black asymmetric, tell them I want my board back

 

I wrote too much.  There is a lot I can say about the outline rationale, even more about rocker(s) and why

the fins, and the way we stand on boards.

 

Thanks,

George

 

P.S.  Like you said the boards are made to go left AND right, just do the turns better/differently and with

more speed/positive feel.  (We had a pro surfer randomly take out the "wrong" board, (goofy board,

regular surfer) and he was looking solid, doing more air type moves than we normally see him do, plus

each turn looked more energetic.  Big claims, I know...)  The wrong, or "opposite" board is not necessarily

valid, as it may be the "difference" in feel left rail vs right that is being noticed.

 

20

Thanks for the write up George -

I’ve written about an asym board I made: Differences in outline, rocker, thickness, fin placement, etc.  And, your story reminded me, a buddy of mine, whom I call my “test rider,” as he use to be a touring pro, loves the board…  The funny thing is, I made it for myself as a regular footer, and he’s goofy…  Ha!  Go figure.

I am with you completely on the “certain fin configs are “draggier” than others.”

Greg - I’ll get some pics up on the “quad stall” thread.

I hope to test out increased cant in the rear toe side fin in the morning…