non-shaper curious about rail design

hello shapers, surf experts and enthusiasts… i am not a shaper and in fact do not consider myself particularly in the know about the subtleties of surfcraft shapes. my question has probably been answered in the archives, so i apologize for the redundancy and novice nature of this question. can someone explain to me the working difference (how it works on/in waves) of hard, soft, pinched…etc… rails? i know there are hundreds of ways to go with this question. i just bought a new longboard which is much thinner and has much harder rails than my previous board. they are both 9’0" but beyond that, the dimmensions are quite different. i wont go into the all the details… but i find my new board much less forgiving on take-offs…not in the pearling sense, but in the rail-grabbing-the-wave-and-tossing-me-into-the-brink sense…i have recently been riding lots of waves on my forehead, chin, eyeballs, etc… but when i make the drop, this new board is awesome…super fast, easy to turn, etc. my older board was forgiving in many ways, but a little bit more sluggish in response time. are my questions answerable without full board specs? please help the curious and naive… nellyda

…ambrose has set my wheels spinning in the direction of shaping my first board… so any enlightenment will perhaps help a potential budding shaper…

Hey Dragonfish,

Check Tom Wegener’s comments about rail design on the nose-riding web site.

http://www.noseriding.com/pages/noseriding-home.htm

Hi Nellyda -

The thing that comes to mind first when you describe the issues you’re having is the fin set up… not that rails, rocker and outline aren’t important - it’s just that there’s nothing you can do about those. Are the fins in both boards the same size and in the same position? If you have a finbox or better yet, boxes, you can have lots of fun experimenting.

Back to rails though. Grab your boards and wrap your hand around the rail. Take a look at the shape your hand takes as you slide it from the nose to tail. You kind of have to imagine how the water will flow under, around and over the rail as you lean side to side and fore and aft. Typically thin rails sink/bite and thick rails float/release. If you check the profile of your board from the side and imagine the part that is in the water it might resemble the profile of an airplane wing or fin - thin, thick and thin again - that’s what they call foil.

Take your fin(s) out and lay the board bottom down and you can get a feel for how rocker might come into play. Just push down on the tail and see how much of the front lifts up. You can get an idea of how fore and aft weight changes affect how much of the rail is actually in the water while riding.

With practice and fin adjustments, you can make most any board work.

thank you john… those are all great suggestions. the thin “bite/grab” aspect of the board in question makes sense. and yess, the fin set up is different on the two boards. i will play around with that as well. what do thruster fins do to a longboard? arg. these must seem like ridiculously simple questions, but i have never been given a straight answer. I preferred a single fin set up on my long board in the past, but decided to try the tri-fin gig to see how it goes…but given all of the other variables, i don’t know if i like the set-up or what it accomplishes. any thoughts in this department?

The “2+1” fin setup can be very versatile. A common problem I’ve run into is the center fin is often too big for general conditions. If you have a center fin over 7 inches, I’d try moving it up in the box or give something smaller a try.

My “daily rider” (up to head high waves) has a center fin of 4 3/4". That one fin has made a huge difference in several longboards that originally came with 7 or 8 inch center fins.

Check the set up Infinity uses on their “Cluster” model for more ideas - it has big side fins and a small center fin moved way up.

Believe me, the “fin issue” will be debated forever - everybody has a preference and usually will explain the “proper” fin size and placement to anyone who will listen.

bueno… gracias… i looked at the sites. i feel more enlightened. i will mess around with fins. lots of good swell here. been 6-7 feet for nearly a week. so much fun. hope california is treating you well. oregon is lovely.

my limitted fin knowledge…

longboard side biters enable better holding power on faster/steeper waves.

like John said, a board with sidebiters won’t require as large a center fin as a single fin will.

Is the Stewart you had at SA your new board?

It did have thin sharp rails from what I remember.

Looked like a really nice performance board.

yeah, that’s the board i am talking about. the center fin is 6’5" , with some side biters. it’s quite a bit different feeling than the smoother rail board w/ single fin set up that i am more accustomed to. it forces me to be more precise, for lack of a better word. i think this board has much to teach me, which i like. i like the challenge. i’ve only ridden a handful of boards in my short reincarnation as a surfer. there seems to be sooooo much to learn from each different board. fun!

Yeah, I know what you mean about being very different. I am going the other way. I started longboarding with the thin rail, hard tail area edge 2+1 fin setup and then built a big soft rail single fin (the yellow/clear blue fin from SA). I am very pleased with how my soft railer turned out, but I sure need to learn how to surf it.

While there are lots of good suggestions above my feeling is that the board is just smaller, volume wise, and your simply getting into the wave later than with the previous board. This may be a situation that practice will solve and not much else.

Dragonfish, I only have one long board with a 2+1 set up. It is 10’6" long and I surf it with 4 inch side bites, and a 5 inch center fin. It also has the hard rails in the tail. I also surf this board as a singel fin, and like it more that way. I did not get a good look at your board while we were at the camp out. Try surfing the board with your old singel fin in it. See if it is the fins or as Greg says the thickness ect.

I do know that it was nice to meet you and your firend. I wish I would have had what was needed to make the Pasta Con Nova that smoked fish was great and would have made a great sause.