New Board Trouble

General Discussion
1

How’s everyone doing. I’ve been looking around the forum and you guys really know what you’re talking about, so I trust what you’ll have to say.

Here’s my problem. I live in NJ surfing slow, 2-4’ waves on average. On good days, we’ll see moderate speed 4-6’ waves. I own and surf a 6’0 Ron Jon and a 6’4 Al Merrick TPH. I’ve been noticing more and more that I have an extremely tough time catching the slow waves that we get on a daily basis. I’m looking for a board that will go fast with great control in slow, small surf. However, I would like the same board to perform just as well in medium swells of 4-7’.

After looking around the internet, I came across the Fish and the Egg boards. The fish boards are good in small waves but I noticed that they lack control and slip out easy. Though there are several versions of the fish, some performing very well in slow, small surf without sacrificing any control, which height would be right for me (I’m 5’9, weighing 145lb) And if fish isn’t the board that I’m looking for, what is? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

A friend of mine and I are looking to start shaping and designing our own boards. But first, we need to know where to start. If any of you guys could maybe throw us some pointers on how to start the whole process that would be awesome. As well as letting us know what the different widths, rails, rockers, and concaves do for a board’s performance.

Thanks alot, I greatly appreciate it.

-Tyler Ward from NJ

2

Swaylock’s Archives and Resources are chock-full of how-to-do-it info.

This is the place if you want to start building boards.

For your new board, IMO you should try a fish. Nothing gets up and goes

quite like it. Get 4 boxes or fcs and play with the fins until you get it just right.

Make sure your fish isn’t too thick(thick ones are for old people), at 145 lbs

you don’t need a lot of foam. Don’t be afraid to ride it as a twin fin on small

days, just use a proper twin template. You may have so much fun you throw

your other boards away. On the length, a Lis-style fish should always be shorter

than the rider.

Mike

3

i’m also 5’9" / 145 lbs…

i ride a 5’6" twin keel fish, and i’m working on a 5’8" double-winged quad.

4

G’day Tyler,

I agree with the advice to go with a fish. You should have a look at the footage of good surfers riding fish in movies like Freeway, Sprout, Glass Love, Blue Horizon to name a few. Also search You tube and you’ll get a better idea if this is what you want to do on a wave. Some good stuff with one of the Malloy’s and K Slater riding fish in decent sized waves on the non-thruster video thread which is here in the general discussion forum probably just one page back by now.

Because you have your Ron Jon and your Merrick aren’t you more likely to ride either of those when the swell picks up?

If so you can buy/make a fish which will go really well in fat, small waves and not have to worry about if it will slide out when its larger.

I ride a conventional shaped fish when the waves are small, fat and slow. I’ve ridden it in waves up to 6 foot and its does get skatey but nothing one can’t handle by keeping your centre of gravity low in your turns. The speed is brilliant.

For 3 foot plus good waves (hollow, fast) I go to my Van Straalen fish which is narrower than a traditional fish but has a pulled in nose and more rocker with flex keels. No thoughts of it spinning out and intuitive control.

What I’m getting at is that you’ll find that it is better to have different boards available for different conditions if you can. Everybody would love to just have one board that works well in everything but most of us are still looking for it.

5

Tyler,

Yancy Spencer III makes a fish/egg combo that works unreal in the type of waves that your describing. I’ve been riding one now for close to five years and I would fully endorse it. I ride the big guy fish model which is 6’10". Granted, I’m 6’1" and 190 lbs so I can handle it no prob, but for your size I’d look at one around 6’2"- 6’4". They have a slightly rounded nose with just the right amount of concave, going flat in the center to a little V in the tail. I ride mine with the Futures Twin & Trailer setup. It’s not a traditional style fish. Check one out.!

He has a shop in Destin Fl called Innerlight Surfshop. Check em out online at [www.innerlightsurf.com] . Have one custom made and shipped directly to you. You’ll never regret it.

6

Tyler,

Little days, fish/egg. Bigger days, ride your more conventional shortboards.

Cuttlefish,

On your DVS fish, how far from the tail are the rear edges of the keels? Also, what are their dimensions? I love the shape and design of those!!!

–Ben

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Thanks everyone for your replies, I appreciate them very much. Now to start off with replies to the replies.

MikeDaniel, I really like the idea of shaping my own fish board. Installing an FCS quad fin box isn’t a bad idea, depending on what i feel like doing, I can take the top 2 fins off to make it a twin fin. Also, you mentioned a Lis-Style fish being shorter than my height, making my board a 5’6 or 5’7! Which is crazy since i never thought to go that low, but thats how fish boards run.

Soulstice, I liked the idea of the twin keel fish, it seemed to be in the size range of a board I was looking for. I looked them up and came across a few of them. They’re definitely not the cheapest boards! Prices were ranging from $700 to $800! I don’t know if I just found a bad website or if thats how much a good board like that retails for.

Cuttlefish, thanks alot for your reply. For some reason I never thought to hunt out videos of fish boards in action. I’ve been to busy watching all these movies that mention the different types of boards, but I never thought to actually single out a board and see it in action. The reason I mention having a fish doing good in small waves and in medium waves was due to the fact that I was thinking i was going to sell both short boards to help pay for the new fish board. I know that at one point I’m eventually going to start to build up my quiver seeing how surfing is my passion in life, just as well as everyone else here. But now that you mention it, It’s not a bad idea to just sell my Ron Jon, and keep the Al Merrick and the fish. So I’ll have my fish for the poor days, but still surfable, and my Merrick for the crazy days. Also, what does Flex Keels mean?

SrPato, if I were to get one of these fish/egg combos I would go with the 6’4 board. Now does this specific type of board have a name? My main question is, how would I go about custom ordering it on this site. Would I just tell him I want a 6’4 fish/egg combo that will perform great in slow, small surf and medium surf? I’m searching the online shop for fish/egg and it came up with a few boards. Most of them being epoxy, which isn’t the type of board I’m looking for. How much did you get your board new for? How much do you think mine might come out to in the end?

11ft, short and to the point. I like it.

Now, for my further input. I plan on traveling to surf, my first trip being J-Bay in south Africa. A neighbor of mine that I became close with due to web design moved back to South Africa and lives near J-Bay, So he’ll be able to tell us where to fly into and give us a place to stay as well as be a tour guide. ~How much does it cost to put your surfboard on a plane anyway?~ So for this kind of trip, seeing how the waves are, I should probably plan on getting better with my Merrick during our good days here in Jersey and have that as my primary board.

Thanks alot everyone, you’ve been a great help so far.

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Flex keel pic!

Flex keel thread, kind of!

They are keels (long fin) with a cutaway to give them better release and squirt…or that’s what I’ve read. Hoping to try some someday.

–Ben

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The keels are 20cms long with the cutaway at the base being a full 10cms long.

The trailing edge of the keel is 15cms from the tail. At the trailing edge the keels bottom edge is 3cms from the bottom of the board. The keel is 14cms tall.

Sorry about the cms but don’t use tape measures with inches here anymore.

If you want to have a great look at both the flex keel twin and the quad look on My Space for the david Rastovich interview with AC. 9 minutes of oggling his fish. I’m lucky to have the carbon fibre model just as he’s showing in the video but mine has a really deep vee inbetween the fins and a tiny glassed in centre trailer fin right in front of the butt crack.

By the way Tyler, you’ll be amazed how much shorter you can go when riding a fish. The extra width and flatter rocker allow them to plane across waves when a conventional 18" wide thruster would be bogging.

The best fun for me is pumping the fish (sounds a bit suss) by which I mean getting the board rising and falling on the face of the wave in a swooping path. You can get a tonne of speed and follow it up with huge cut backs. You can put more of your weight forward on them and don’t surf them off your back foot because they will get squirrelly, especially on your back hand.

10

Sweet! Thanks Cuttlefish. And no worries about the cm, thanks for the measurements!

Yeah, that video is sweet. That’s where I first spotted them. So gorgeous. Only problem is he moves the board around so much that it is hard to get a good look at them when they are square to the camera.

–Ben

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Hey Tyler,

I surf waves similar to you for much of the summer & I highly recommend a Quad fish about 5’10". Traditional twin keel fish with foam right through will float & go down the line well in junky waves but turn like crap, Though they ae great fun in clean waves. A quad with a similar planshape, shallower buttcrack and way less foam will allow you hit a few turns along the way. Have a look at Feral Daves Diverse Surfboards site. he has a really nice small quad plan shape.

12
Quote:

Now, for my further input. I plan on traveling to surf, my first trip being J-Bay in south Africa. A neighbor of mine that I became close with due to web design moved back to South Africa and lives near J-Bay, So he’ll be able to tell us where to fly into and give us a place to stay as well as be a tour guide. ~How much does it cost to put your surfboard on a plane anyway?~

Don’t drag a board to J-bay, buy one locally, they are cheap and some of the most talented shapers live in the area.

Your mate in Jeffriesbaai will undoubtedly have the inside track but if you wish I can shoot you some names and numbers of shapers down there, most of em don’t have websites it’s africa you know…

If you want a board ready for your arrival, typically the SA shapers ask two weeks lead time and they’ll have it ready for your “just off the plane and already into better waves than back home” session…

13

a keel fin fish isn’t so wonderful unless you have a point break to turn and burn and really get the thing dialed. I’d go for a 5’6 quad fish, with futures or fcs so you can play around with some different fin set-ups. Fcs will indeed make your board lighter, but futures have been getting some high acclaim, so i’d just check it out; but a quad-fish really sounds to be the right board for your situation.

14

Hi Tyler,

Wow, this thread is really generating some good/helpful responses.

My board cost $450 five years ago. It’s also the epoxy version. Call the shop to custom order a board and tell them you want to speak to the shaper. (Whether it’s Yancy or his son.) For some reason $600 comes to mind for a custom but I’ve spoken to so many shapers this year that I can’t be exactly sure. Best bet is call. I plan on ordering one next spring when I return to Destin for a family vacation. I can’t wait, those boards are so insanely fun!

marc

15

Here’s a little more fish “food for thought”.

I left out the fact that my traditionally shaped fish (wide point forward, full rails, flat rocker) has a centre fin box and fcs plugs for its side fins. What this allows me to do is put a normal single fin in it or use an FCS adaptor so I can put any 2 tab FCS fin in it.

Most of the time I have FCS M5 fins in it as a thruster. If it gets bigger I put a modified sailboard fin into the centre box. I have put MR FCS fins in it but didn’t like it at all. The MR fins are twin fins and they have a small centre trailer fin.

So I’ve never had it as a twin keel.

The twin keels I do have (Pipedreams Trippun fish and the Van Straalen Rocket fish) are both cut away keels and have pulled in noses, modern rails and both have radical v’s inbetween the fins.

These both go extremely well both on points and beachbreaks. Burnsie was saying the keels turn like crap but the cut away keels are entirely another kettle of fish.