Was wondering the same. Maybe experimenting to keep the nose above water for takeoffs?
At 60+ and not in good shape, these things are nearly impossible to use. I could barely catch waves with my 5’ 3" fish that is over 2" thick. Trying to use swim fins and a belly board after years of not using them is hard.
You can get similar results with a flat rockered board that has very thin rails, like the board I took to Kauai.
Curren the sorcerer always searching for the next magic…sure found it back in 94’…
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with any luck, Curren will take the lemmings over the cliff on his stand up paipo boards just as Slater did with his hyper rockered pin dick boards…made for such a great time for scoring waves…once again pls
After seeing this video, my brother had Jeff Bushman make him something similar. Bushman made a 6-2 3-fin fish without the channel bottom, I think it was 1997 maybe 1996. I borrowed it one time and tried it in head high to slightly higher waves. That day the waves were just coming up and maybe 3 to 4 ft in the “Hawaiian” scale, and it was really crowded. I lived across the street from the beach and the next day I was in the water just before first light. As soon as I got in I knew the surf was big. By the time I got to the break, you could see it was huge. It turned out to be the first day of the biggest surf I’ve seen on the south side. The place I usually surfed is Courts and there wasn’t a Courts. There was break that was between Big Lefts and Courts, and it was a left. The biggest sets were between 2 and 3 times overhead. In between and giant sets, there’d be waves coming through Courts, but the inside was a closeout with Big Lefts. You basically sit where the smaller sets line up and duck dive the big sets. In 3 hours I only managed to catch 3 waves on the board, and I had to nurse every turn.
That swell lasted a week and for most of the week Ala Moana Park was unrideable. I saw a waves break all the way across the Ala Wai channel, and the only people trying to surf Bowls were 2 guys on boogey boards, but the Coast Guard chased them away. The one thing I regret is not trying to surf Castles. I didn’t know it, but I watched Castles break for several days from my lanai. It looked really thick and hard to catch, but the rides were long. I’ve since had the opportunity to see and taste that wave and it’s something you’ll never forget.
Here’s a couple of shots of the Ala Wai Channel that I took when I got home that morning. The biggest sets broke all the way across to Magic Island. The image shows the old channel markers that the guys would stand on on the big days. The one closest to bowls wasn’t there after the swell was over, the red triangle at the top is already torn off.
