Revisiting my Fish!

[Billycvs]

Hi Guys,

Hoping for some clarification or advice on building a new Fish 

I have this 5’8 x 21.25" x 2.75" fish i made year or so ago which was build number 3 for me, 

It has  a 16.5" nose and tail. 1.5" tail rocker, 3.5" nose rocker. its 2" thick 12" from nose and 2 1/16" thich at a12" from tail. butt crack is 12", fins are Hobie from true ames.

Bottom is flat too mild v. Rails are down with a small tuck to hard in the rear with a bevel on the deck. 6x6 deck and 6oz bottom with deck and fin patch. glassed with resein researach and cut from a 5’10Rp

 

I have really enkoyed this board, surfing it in everything from knee high too well overhead. I have found its sweet spot is from waist high clean to mushy and over head. any smaller and it looses its purpose, at the top end of the spectrum its might fast and you can really lay it iver on fatter waves. its east to paddle and wave count is allways good.

Where i have found trouble is on the cleaner shoulder to head hgh days, where the board can feel very stiff and tracky going down the line,you turn into the bottom and it just sits on a track and I cant get it away until the wave dies down, board is sat low on the face and not racing away from the pocket. The other issue i have founnd is on the smaller days where you have the room turn into the face but the board tends to stick on the way through,

Now my initial thoughts are that this is a nose width or rail issue, but before i go and shape its replacement i wanted to thrash some ideas around and get some more informative opinions and ideas.

 

I am concidering, 5’5 x 21 x 2.5, same nose and tail numbers, but with a finer foil and more forgiving rails, 60/40 ish. Im wondering if my front foot is more inline with the wide point, would this aid in forcing the board free. or perhaps 5’7x20.5" x2.5 with a finer foil and smilar rail design,

i have a shorter board, and this paddles pretty well, so I dont mind coming down in size. There seems to be two schools of thiought on fish, as small as you dare, to own the board, or more foiled and norrow to add controll. I dont wish to go bigger as i have a 6’0 fsh which im also looking to make a replacment for, this is more pulled in, and the issue witht hat board is coming roiund from a top turn, the front end tends to wash out on re entry,

what youu guys think?

https://swaylocks7stage.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/IMG_20190831_164303.jpg(image larger than 4 MB)

https://swaylocks7stage.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/IMG_20190831_164252.jpg(image larger than 4 MB)

[thrailkill]

You have an eye pleasing design, and your numbers seem to be correct.        I think your issue may be a bit too much fin.         Both depth and base.      A bit shorter base, and a bit less depth.         No toe, and no cant.

[reverb]

…hello; in my opinion, you are suffering to what I always mention to all you guys putting those keel fins. Why discard the lasts 40 years of design and insist with that?

Just put a canard quad set up; and if you want more in the pocket  action, more rocker in the last 1/3; ultra thin tail rails; S deck.

Check “thee modern fish” thread here.

 

 

[Billycvs]

Bill, I hear many experienced shapers mention no toe and no cant on fish, do you think these design features help with off the tail turns but against the longer straight rails on the fish? My other fish has some shorter shallower fins, which I moved up the board a further inch this board doesn’t ever get stuck in the face but does still have can’t and toe. 

[Billycvs]

As much as I can see your angle reverb, I would like to keep this as a keel, I do plan to experiment with quad fish In the future, but my current aim is to dial in this design for myself.

Would adding a quarter inch of tail rocker work with a keel fin? Would this mean less effort to initiate the turns?

One things for sure when you do get the keel fish turning it follows through soo well!

 

I’ll revisit the modern fish thread

[gdaddy]

I would say that building a traditional Lis-style fish and trying to surf it differently than was intended by the design is counterproductive.   The board was designed to do most of the work and surfing it was about using a relatively small amount of rider input.     The guys who are surfing these agressively like a high performance shortboard are riding very small sizes that they can literally overpower by brute force.  Those guys are on 5-0 lengths; they’re going smaller, not bigger.  

 You’re not going to be doing that with even a 5-8 unless you’re 200# or larger and have the leverage to push the board around more.   

I wouldn’t even take the traditional design out to 5-10, let alone 6-0.   You’re getting away from what the design was intended to do.  

If you want the board to be more nimble then start adding some curve to the last 24" of the template.  A little more Zippi-Fish, a little less Lis-Fish.  You don’t need to add rocker.  With the Zippis you can extend the size more and still control it.  

 

[Bob_T]

Sounds like too much fin to me too. 

 

You can have the same problem with quads as well.

 

Love the feel and ride  of a keel fish. Modern developments, and gimmicks be damned!

[McDing]

Exactly right.   Traditional Lis Fish will only surf the way the IP speaks of, if it can be overpowered.  Otherwise put some curve in the outline.  That is all you really need to do.

[Billycvs]

thanks for all the replys!

First off its not my intention to take away from the Fish’s natural abilities! i just want to take my initial design and try to ‘perfect’ it for my self, whether that be going shorter, narrower, a touch more rocker or smaller fins. 

I genuinely love the free flow you get from the design and its ability to rap around a turn, a few pumps up and down the wave into a nice cutback or floater is to me, what the fish does.

I am 175lbs, 5’10ish. intermediate ability and surf only beach breaks. From all the advice here, im thinking that if i use some smaller fins, perhaps a cutaway keel, and reduce the size of the board I can keep the glide and paddle, but improve the controll over board.

If i go 5’6 length, pull the wide point in  too say, 20.75", and leave the tail and nose the same but reduce the thickness , would this retain the speed and allow me to use the rails a little more?

a few of you mention going for a more pulled in design, Im open to reducing the tail tip width, but only a small amount, my other “fish” ( lets be honest its just a swallow tail and two fins) runs a 10" tail and a more curvy outline, ive attached an image in the hope you guys can see my position and help me to keep my fish fishy,

[Billycvs]

thanks for all the replys!

First off its not my intention to take away from the Fish’s natural abilities! i just want to take my initial design and try to ‘perfect’ it for my self, whether that be going shorter, narrower, a touch more rocker or smaller fins. 

I genuinely love the free flow you get from the design and its ability to rap around a turn, a few pumps up and down the wave into a nice cutback or floater is to me, what the fish does.

I am 175lbs, 5’10ish. intermediate ability and surf only beach breaks. From all the advice here, im thinking that if i use some smaller fins, perhaps a cutaway keel, and reduce the size of the board I can keep the glide and paddle, but improve the controll over board.

If i go 5’6 length, pull the wide point in  too say, 20.75", and leave the tail and nose the same but reduce the thickness , would this retain the speed and allow me to use the rails a little more?

a few of you mention going for a more pulled in design, Im open to reducing the tail tip width, but only a small amount, my other “fish” ( lets be honest its just a swallow tail and two fins) runs a 10" tail and a more curvy outline, ive attached an image in the hope you guys can see my position and help me to keep my fish fishy,

[reverb]

Hello; for the people that is saying that a Lis fish is a Lis fish…nobody now that buy a thruster think in a ´81 Energy…

Do you say that wants a fish to perfom like that; well; a fish is like a skate and have that “fishness” thingy.

Needs to be around 8 inches smaller in length that your average daily ride (if you ride not so wider and thicker boards)

If you have an outline like those zippy fishes; will be good turning but the feeling (and projection) will be other.

The one in that photo is a rocket fish; very popular in the mid 90s.

Whe you thin out the foil in the last third and makes an S deck with more rocker in that area you would fiish with a board that moves and retains the characteristics.

When you add the canard quads; you are dividing the 9 3/4 of a keel fin in two fins per side with the same area (depends, due to I tweak the rear fin to turns even more) letting an space between them (and toe in in the front ones) so you can have a better AOAs.

But if you are stubborn or do not like these advantages (like most) is ok for me. I am telling in few words some aspects of the evolution of this design.

You see how good surfers fight with those outdated fish with keel fins in daily basis; included some great names.

Another niche is the ones insisting with the D fins and some outdated outlines for the longboards. Only good if you ride the types of waves that you have in some spots in S Diego California or if you have a quiver of longboards or if you have gobs of technique so you can do whatever you want on the board.

[batfische]

One cool, interesting thing about the profile/rocker pic: I think at a glance most backyarders and shapers would guess it’s a Mini-Simmons.

Reminds me of so many things about the first 20 boards… After making my first 20, I could often ID self shapes others were riding from the nose and tail foils and the rails of boards. Your rails are beefy for your weight (I think that’s typical of early backyarder shapes, like from the 1st 20 boards you make unless someone puts you on a journey toward finer rails right away). I’m still, at #85, forcing myself to thin rails past what my brain wants to believe is satisfactory. Rail templates are a great help, there, because if you’re wondering if your rails are thicker than you think, a concrete reference point will almost always tell you that they are.

As far as volume-to-weight, I’m 215 lbs (this may be different for longer-reach-per-weight), and for me different board designs have different volume adjustments consistently associated. Example: Simmons and Simmons variations often are better for me with 5-10% higher volume than a good HPSB. But that doesn’t hold universally. I made a Tomo-tailed Simmons-ish variation (very, very flat rocker, wakeboard-originated planshape, Tomo quad-inside-double) that I think pretty much anybody would ID as some type of mini-Simmons variation at a glance, but it’s best at normal or even slightly lower-than-HPSB volume.

What type of dims to shoot for just depends on the design of the board, which involves more than any 1 aspect of its design (i.e. more than just planshape).

[gdaddy]

• **I genuinely love the free flow you get from the design and its ability to rap around a turn, a few pumps up and down the wave into a nice cutback or floater is to me, what the fish does.**

 

Not trying to be a dick about it, but that’s not what the traditional fish was designed to do.  There’s nothing wrong with surfing that way but there are other alternatives that were designed to do that.   The Pavel Speedialer is a variant with a double bump and a slightly pulled in tail and it was designed as a quad.  Pavel used the split keel that Reverb is referring to and this combo is widely considered more nimble than a taditional fish.  

Different strokes and all, but I try to surf a board based on its strengths, so I am doing different things on different boards.   I buy or build a board to fill a hole that the others aren’t already filling.   

 

[Billycvs]

Thanks Reverb, 

I revisited the modern fish thread and found the information very interesting…

The black and red board which I plan to reshape will use more of these modern ideas and knowledge. 

I could not agree more in regards to watching surfers fight the fish, there are many other boards which are more suitable. Too me, the magic in the fish is using the power in the wave to perform the turns, which as you refer to as the skate, allows the free flow across the waves face. 

Soo, you mention the s deck and thinning of the foil and rails in the rear 1/3rd, I agree This is a must when I reshape the board, but do you use a thinner foil through out your nose?

What about using a moder twin fin template over the Canard quad?

If this was your project and you were looking too improve what you allready had, would you be focusing on the length and template dimensions, or refining the foil. 

Writing this has reminded me of the first proper wave I Rode on a quad, which has a very finely foiled tail, I went for a top turn and the nose came round much faster than expected, ended up heading back to the foam ball! Perhaps I should build two boards, a quad and a twin

[Billycvs]

You couldn’t be more correct, you have nailed the state of my shaping!

Looking at the shape in the rack it always seems right! But you out a board next to something decent and all becomes aparant!

I can see what you mean looking at the rocker shot. When I shaped this board it was 11" shorter than anything I had surfed before, I was nervous to put all this effort into building a board I couldn’t surf! One issue we have here on the Cornish coast, is the low numbers of people who regularly surf fish, there are very few shops you can pop into to view a really well shaped Fish, and those that doo, have boards from the States and Oz. only a handful of local shapers making anything worthy of looking at, and mostly surfed by shortboarders who are trying to fill the gap on smaller days. Most local shaped fish I see are fun boards, not fish.

I realize I could just template this, thin it out and give it some really nice rails, but would I be satisfied? 

[batfische]

I’m fortunate to get to see a good array of different designs because Halcyon is next door and I get to see not only the boards of people who come to see me (and what’s in the stores) but what comes through for fin work and ding repair.

Everybody here – Haut, Stretch, Bob P, you name it – has one or more “fishy” designs in the catalog. There is a wide array of approaches. Some have vee, some don’t, some have a waist (planshape curves back outward in tail), some have the now-popular tail cuts in the planshape line at the tips, etc. etc. etc.). For every example, someone is very happy with it, precisely because it is more similar to a classic Lis or Pavel fish or because it isn’t.

I had a Mandala fish a while back that I measured and catalogued in case I ever want to do something similar. It was different from the majority of local fishy designs, probably because it was more similar to a Pavel (I have never seen a Pavel 1st hand, just know that there is some person-to-person overlap, there). Many contemporary fish variations have concaves that start much further up to the nose, and many have “spiral vee” or vee that peaks near the back foot, and then reduces through the tips.

[batfische]

Ha…there are a few backyarders on this board who seem to me ahead of the curve in terms of number of boards made and how rails and foil look. I would guess in part that is because if you’re going to share pics here, you know some knowledgeable and experienced people are doing to see the boards. That’s like a “virtual mentorship” situation. Halcyon (member here) is next door, and aside from benefitting from his input and thoughts, just knowing that when I’m working on boards for myself someone other than me will be seeing what I’ve done – and who is candid with me about what he sees – has helped me make more progress in a year than in 6 or 7 previous. Or maybe it is just critical progress, the kind that can’t happen in a vacuum. Mentorship is invaluable, for sure.

On the other hand, I have friends who are learning to surf in the Gulf of Mexico, with little more than the internet and my input. That is kind of immensely cool because they’re learning to do it in a very pure way, just from loving being in waves and learning to adapt to the equipment on hand. I have new boards for them, but they still have the 1st ones I sent over, only one of which is really suitable to the primary rider and the waves & conditions they’re working with. I don’t think they can experience fully how awesome and rare that is, because they don’t get the “Surf City” experience for comparison.

I guess I’m trying to say both roads have their charms.

Getting things wrong in the bay is awesome! Some of the coolest “tricks” I’ve learned came about through getting something wrong. Example: a Simmons that ended up too thin for me, so I flat decked it, carried a lot of volume into the rails, and pinched the rails to make them less boxy performancewise. The volume was in a way below what I would expect to be a fun surf for me (I do not enjoy boards that paddle poorly, or that I have to paddle really hard to enter waves), but it’s a joy to ride. Same board has a totally unnecessary inch of length in the nose, and an exaggerated nose rocker for a mini-Simmons variation. Because of the length and the type of rider intended (portly me), that “wrong” nose makes the board the most comfortable board ever to lay on (which gave me an insight into why I hate step-decks, personally, and why many top heavy guys may not enjoy step decks like lighter people will).

[Scott_Jarratt]

You’ve rediscovered the problem with the early fishes, where the board will track off the template like an Alaia in trim, and Mark Richards’ solution was to add some curve to the tail and add a wing.  My preference is what I call a semi-rounded swallow where I accelerate the curve in the last 12-15 inches.  It’s subtle, looks cool, and works in everything from mush to the heaviest tubes that can be found.  That’s it!  Just take the straightness out of your swallow tail.

[Billycvs]

Yes, looking around everything bar the die hard ‘it’s not a fish if its not a Lis’ seems to have a pulled in tail!

 

I fondled a few fish this last week, christenson, stewart, lovelace, vouch, JS… It gave a me a little more Insite as to what Batschife was saying, I have a few boards where I have nAiled the rails, but more which do seem over sized and lacking a bit of foil and character. I’ve been using greenlights rail band marks, great place to start but I guess I need to move on a little.

 

Here is the blank I’ll be using, 5’10 rp with a wedge stringer. I have one other stringerless PU under my belt, a 5’4  which I used some s glass scramble tape down the centre. No issues yet but I’m a bit nervous of the glass schedule for this build. Probably 6x6/6 and epoxy resin

I’ll be marking out the template over the next few days, it will be either 5’6 or 5’7. I’ll keep going back and looking at the foot prints on my original board, and my front foot is behind the wide point, if the wide point is pushed back it will loose the easy paddle, but if I reduce the length to put the wide point under my front foot, it should be easier to break free. Is my thought process ocorrecr???

Between 20.5 and 21" wide. 2.5"/2 5/8" thick. Slightly pulled in tail and a little more concave.

You all have such great and varied advice, it’s much appreciated. 

I want to stay true to the soul of the fish, but will be taking on some more modern ideas in regards to the smaller fins mentioned by Bill and tail dims and rail shapes. 

I guess this is turning into a build thread. But sadly I need to put a new roof on the shaping room due to the three concurrent stroms we have had! 

[gdaddy]

Unless you’re prone to driving the nose into the bottom I wouldn’t worry too much about snapping.  If you think of flex in terms of length x thickness, a 5-7 x 2.5/8 won’t flex that much.    If you’re using epoxy then that gets you past the brittleness of the PE resins.  I don’t think you need bother with S-glass up the center. 

 

What I will say is that taking a 5-7 length in a fish-oriented design out of the middle of that blank will give you all the rocker you need and then some.  If you’re taking the thickness off the bottom then you don’t want to get too far away from the stock rocker or you’ll end up with too much.    I normally order that blank with a little less nose rocker for fishy shapes and I normally use the stock rocker for alternative shapes that we do up as thrusters and quads.