Point- vs beach- vs reefbreakboards

Every break deservs it´s own shape!

But what are the diffrences in the shape of a surfboard between a board in reef/beach/pointbreak waves?

How would you shape a board ( i.e. travelboard) that should work in all breaks as good as possible?

This thread is about shortboards. Otherwise i guess it will be to much of a mix of shapes.

cheers clemens

so nobody has got a clue or is just the question so dumb?

My boards work magical on any break… they are not short or long.

The only constants for a ‘travelboard’ are:

finbox center & whichever removeable system you prefer for the largest amount of fin choices

neutral tail - not too square and not too pinny but squash, roundish, or round pin should all be ok

weight: midweight. Too light & might break or be a problem in wind, too heavy and it won’t surf like you want and it’ll be a b!/(h in airports & busses. so you want a light blank and a heavy glass job to even out the weight & durability

couple sticks of ding all putty

go surfing

Yo ‘Dude - My most versatile board, believe it or not, is my 6’2" Fish. It works everywhere except DOH + (which I don’t find myself in very often), and paddles WAY better than a short thruster - IMHO. The problem here (and this brings up a new question), is that it has the traditional glassed on keel fins, which might not take too kindly to manhandling by baggage handlers. If you could get similar performance from Lokbox Keels (removable, of course), you’d be pretty stoked. Throw a mid-size thruster in your taco bag (think 8’ Rusty D.I. type thing) and you’re done packing…

I’m actually thinking of cooking up a “Travel Fish” with this fin system, but I’m tenative 'cause of the reports of ripped out keels with other “box systems”. Any input on this out there?

All you need to travel with glass-on fins is a decent block of high density foam to go between the fins… no problema…

hard travel case to protect keels or a keel/tail protector to place over the tail while in transit.

I put fin protectors on my water skis when I fly. For the water ski I put the tail in a PVC pipe.

For a surfboard you could have a strap-on block that surounds the fins and sits flush on the bottom of the board. Then strapped in place around the board. Whole thing goes into the board bag. No you just have to worry about the board bag ending up on the bottom of the pile, but the keels will still be good when you arrive.

Keith beat me to it…

or instead of wood use foam blocks shaped to match your keel angles. 3 blocks one in the center and one between each keel and the rail.

That’ll probably work in my taco bag (might be a sorta tight fit 'cause there’s always another board jammed in there), any ideas on where to get foam blocks? I scored one in Costa Rica when I was in school down there, only to find that it wasn’t “high density” enough (found a broke fin) when I got back to the states. Maybe somebody maufactures 'em for keels? I’ve seen the thruster version at Mitch’s…

A travel board would work best with:

Mid Rails (so it not fully in or out of the water) (aka Points Like low rails and small wave beachies like boxy)

Rounded Square Tail ( if your riding Small/Medium waves) (Round tails are cool cause they handle bigger waves and flow more stylish)

Single Concave (allright I don’t know much about concave but I would go for Simple Single)

A longer board (so it would still hold in big waves but due to the rocker/concave/tail it would still rip up small waves) (ie. Im 5ft6 (grom) and ride a 6ft2 shaped like a small wave thruster as a travel board)

Rocker (Personal Preffernce) (I like a mid rocker so u can rip in the pocket but still drive down the line)

Of course there is just riding whatever you have, and at the end of the day, its what works for u! u can ride a fish in a 12ft barrel if u want!

Josh.

Surfingdude. Well, its pretty hard to generalize point vs reef vs beach. I’ve surfed pretty gutless point surf in Baja and paddled constantly to stay in one spot at over head Steamers. Big, fat,slow reef breaks and heaving ledging reef breaks. The same for beach breaks. Would you ride the same board for OB in San Francisco as you would for OB in San Diego? I think not. How do you generalize a board for so many variables based on point/reef/beach? Kind of a vague question and I mean no disrespect. I would make a board you know you can surf well on in the most likely waves you will encounter or be willing to paddle into.Mike

Cut a boogie board in half, and lay your boards fins down, to make slight marks, then grab a kitchen knife and have at it until you get a nice fit. I’ve used the same boogie for 20 years.