My Prosthetic

I came to building some prototypes about 8 months ago because I am an incredibly inflexible surfer - I’m the only surfer I’ve ever seen who can’t crouch past his knees. I do not like to stretch.

This makes surfing more challenging because 1. it makes completing and recovering manoeuvres difficult, but mainly and more importantly it makes transitioning weight from the ball to the heel of your foot slow and ineffective riding frontside i.e. doing topturns going frontside is difficult.

Ok so my options were either fanatical stretching (refer above) or adding an inch or two extra to my heels. The call of my wife’s platforms notwithstanding, I decided to add a rectangular raised section to the tail on the left hand (heel) side of my board (see pics below). The section tapers from an almost zero height along the stringer to about an inch near the rails, though this is not necessarily linear.

Although it had no real impact backhand it made a huge difference to my forehand surfing. The improvement in rail-to-rail transitioning was much more than I was expecting and as a result I am now able to execute turns I previously wouldn’t have attempted.

The first few prototypes were made of cork, but I wasn’t able to totally waterproof and they got waterlogged. In the absence of any other lightweight, hard, watertight materials I could add under the tailpad, the next two were made by adding a platform of foam under the fibreglass (see below) and re-glassing. Not pretty!! I expect there are a good few glassers out there that would be repulsed by the sight of my work, but in my defence they are strong and watertight! The foam approach also had the benefit of being able to shape the platform more closely to my requirements.

Some observations I made:

  • the platform should be as close to a flat or smoothly curved surface as possible transverse to the stringer - I found a stepped surface uncomfortable to ride
  • the higher the platform, the more effective they worked but too high (for me over an inch) also felt a bit awkward.
  • the glassing around the platform had to be built slightly stronger than you would for a normal tail section. As a result it may add a bit of weight to the board, though I have not really noticed this. I suspect this is because the weight is at the tail, rather than the nose or middle sections, so the effective increase in angular momentum is small.
  • the first few rides backhand were pretty odd because the board starts turning a lot sooner and harder on the bottom turn than normal. Forehand was easy to adjust to.

Admittedly, like anything asymmetrical on a surfboard it looks really weird, but I defy anyone who tries this not to feel

some level of benefit at least on their forehand

Hopefully sometime soon a tailpad manufacturer will start making these because the modification is real modifcation to do.



What an great idea, has anyone else tried anything like this? I’m really weak backside, l can just seem to find the power and wonder something like might work?

Hmmm… that is very interesting! I like the idea! Thanks alot! -Carl

instead of glassing foam under the tail pad, why not get some

EVA foam (what the tail pad is made from) and shape a block of that to make the wedge shape you are after and then contact cement that to the board. Then put your tail pad on top of that to create your contoured textured finish. Or just build your own tail pad?

Check the archives for EVA suppliers.

Another aproach would be build an asymetric to help with your backside. MrJ has a good right up on his asymetric experience. With a quick look I did not find the right thread but some where in the archives MrJ gives a lot of detail about the design behind the ASH project (ASymetric H?). All I could find was the building of the board. If memory serves the explansion of the design is mixed in with the construction explanasion.

good luck

Hmm. Well, what about as you are shaping the blank you actually shape the part of the tail in an asymetrical way and glass as normal. You could just then use an over the counter tail pad and it would be light and watertight. Just a thought

Rio