rocker too low- can it be made usable/bearable?

General Discussion
1

Howdy swaylockers, 

First of all a big thank you to everyone who contributes to this amazing repository of board building knowledge. 

This is #9, and I was pretty happy with how it was going until I surfed it. it is 5’9 x 20 1/2" x 2 3/8". Mckee quad setup and I put a wing on as a bit of a challenge. First time pigment.

 Whenever I try to put it through a turn it seemed to suck water and want to sink, causing me to nurse every turn heavily. 

It seems to be the rocker, or lack of (lesson learned). I have tried with smaller fins in the back, which seemed slightly better, but not a major improvement. I am think now either just two fins, some tiny nubs in the back, or maybe building a hard edge right up the length of the board…unfortunately I don’t have a bunch of small fins for testing. 

I would be gutted to have to get rid of this, but at the moment it is no fun to surf. 

I am open to ideas anyone may have to improve the performance of the board, or perhaps a better trained eye can see there is something else causing this to be a dog. 

Thanks again, 

Tom

 

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2

There appears to be excessive toe-in, in your fins.       Rocker looks normal, for a board that size.       

3

The classic rocker for a 5-6 fish is ~3.25" in the nose and ~1" in the tail.  It looks like you’ve got more than that, so I don’t think the rocker is the problem.   

I would vote for you possibly surfing the board too far forward.    The inset rears are supposed to feel and act more like a thruster than a quad anyway, so you’d need your rear foot all the way back to bring it around.  

Von Sol is doing a 5" twin in the front with little nubs in the back.  I’m sure you could push that around.  

4

I’m with Bill on this - the rocker looks fine, I would take a good hard look at the fin options, including layout. Routing out and resetting a fin plug is completely do-able, and much better than abandoning an otherwise very nice board.

BTW, I have a board with a similar problem, I just set it aside but I really need to take a good look at the fins.

5

It is sometimes hard to tell if Toe is off on a board from a picture.  I have taken pics of boards from the tail before and the camera angle exaggerates the toe.  But an overhead picture likes yours is usually pretty close to accurate.  As Bill said the rocker looks fine.  Based on the photo I would say Bill is right.  The toes is over done.  Crossed up fins.  I know from experience that a board with crossed up fins has difficulty getting on a plane to the point that it is extremely difficult to catch waves.  I don’t know anything regarding theory as to “Why”?  I’m sure Bill can fill you in on the reasoning.  I crossed one up many years ago and it wouldn’t catch waves for $#!t.  Didn’t ride any better either.  I removed the FCS plugs, put a straight edge on it and corrected my mistake.

6

The Pic does make it appear as if the toe in on the fins, cross the stringer well before the tip of the nose.

 

I think this has the effect of ‘snow plowing’ like a beginning Skier angling thier skies together in order to not get going too fast when going downslope.  I think this make the board not only paddle into waves slow, but the board feels like it needs to be constantly swung side to side closer to the trough, like tick tacking a skateboard to propel oneself.

 

Try taking out one Quad fin on your forehand rail.  Two tab FCS1 fins are pretty numerous used online and elsewhere, and the single FCS1 plugs are likely the easiest system to route out and relocate slightly, So you should be able to dial in the board.

 

Are you used to Quads?

 

I have some Mckee’ish located quad boxes on my board.  I can’t click with it as a Quad, but as a thruster.  Aaaahhhhhhhhhh!

 

Try it as a trusty thruster before routing out any fin plugs.  Quads turn weird, in my opinion. I Always feels like I got to more slowly initiate the turn, then quasi nurse it, instead of just planting the rail and pushing as hard as I can, like the trusty thruster allows. 

 

7

I appreciate you looking at this Bill.

I will measure again, but I have made that mistake in the past, with the fins crossing over the stringer. I used the method described on sways by sorry cant remember who using the edge of a long sheet of paper and a pin on nose on the stringer, then flipping over the paper to get equal toe on both sides. I am sure the fins are converging forward of the nose of the board, but maybe not enough forward. 

I am more optimistic than I was though as re setting fins is achievable and I might keep this one from becoming a clock or something.

Thanks Again., 

Tom

8

Thanks mate, 

The photo could be distorting things, but the comments above make me want to take a closer look. 

I will try one less fin and see what happens. I have had a quad that I made and loved, and this was supposed to be a better version of that, so I think I know what it should feel like, or at least I know it shouldn’t feel like it does at the moment. 

Thanks again 

Tom

9

More toe-in = more surface of the fin facing the flow of water = more drag.

10

Rocker looks fine. Foam distribution looks good. Time for fin play. Normal stuff in the learning curve. 

11

What are the bottom contours like? Any belly in or near the tail?

12

…I think that you are talking about other problem; I mean, fins are one thing but sink a rail is another and have nothing to do with fins.

First, you say 5 9 but I use a 5 2 fish; because I am not big or fat, a 6 fish is for super big guys; a 5 10 with more meat than that is for big guys. Simon Anderson, M Richards, Malloy, etc are big guys for reference. You need to have good “leverage” to make a wider design works right.

So are you sure and this is the only important point, that the length and overall area is ok for your size?

Then, what type of waves? A fish, a modern fish or a rocket fish are not rookie boards or small fat surf condition design.

The thickness in the last 1/3 of your board is too much.

Regarding fins: with that toe in, you cannot describe a down the line ride fast BUT you can turn on a dime (but you need to have the right tilt and the right rocker to compensate; depends on for what the board is intended; pocket warrior, down the line, slalom, cutback surfing etc)

You need to put the rear foot back, similar to a thruster.

Regarding that straight edge from the fins to the tip of the nose: for a 5 9 and for most, you do not point to the tip; the compromise is always off the tip.

THEN, the rear fins have HALF of the toe in.

 

13

hey monk, 

no belly, its a slight single to double with a bit of vee right at the back. 

14

thanks reverb, 

Im tall and thin, 6’2 and about 170lbs (close to 80kg), been surfing for 17 years now. this is a copy of a board I made that I liked, although it is wider. I’ve tried in a few different types of waves and had similar problems. thanks for the tip on the last 1/3, I agree. 

A few have mentioned getting the back foot back further, so I’ve ripped off the tail pad that was on there and I’ll do some more tests. 

I can confirm the fins do not point to the nose but ahead of it, there is less toe on the rears but after carefully measuring again I do think it is worth re setting at least 2 of them. i will measure off the stringer this time, 1/4" in the front and 1/8" in the rears. 

It could be fins, my back foot, or like you mention, just a bad balance between design features, but I’m not giving up just yet. 

Thanks again

15

  1. Surf it more. You would be surprised how you adapt to what’s under your feet.

  2. It looks like you have too much volume farther towards the tail. While it;s not a massive amount, for my eyes and my experience, the bulk of your foam is too far back. This might be causing you to sink too far inot the wave when surfing. Not enough foam to keep you planing under your feet in the center and front of the board… my guiess is that youa re burying rails and plowing as opposed to planing.  So if you are going to keep her, I would move the stance back several inches.

16

Did you put a straight edge on the fins?  Inside face to the nose?  If that’s all good;  you are then most likely off on the distribution and foil of the foam.  I shaped a longboard once that had the overall rocker too far forward.  The board pushed water on paddle and was a bit squirrelly under foot.

17

Did the previous board have V in the tail?

I tried some V off the tail of an iteration of a board design that I really like.

I hated the V.

YMMV

18

I’ve made a few boards that I couldn’t dial in. I think it’s in the fins you are using or the location/angle of tow. The post about where you are standing is another thing to think about.

Have you tried using just 2 fins in the front boxes? If that still doesn’t work, I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe try going down in size on all the fins.

It does look like your front fins have a lot of tow. For my boards, I’ve found that I prefer less tow and cant. I don’t have any tow on my rear fins in quads and I also tend to keep the rear fins straight up, no cant. Most of my boards have between 1/8" and 3/16" in the front fins, but everyone is different, so don’t take that as the way to go.

Here’s a 5-9 x 22" I made it as a quad, but I also ride it with keel fins in front and tiny trailers I made because I don’t like twins will sometimes wash out. These trailers are not the ones I use now, but they are the same size. I have a another set of keels that are a little bigger than these, and single sided foils, these are symmetrically foiled. A different set of fins changes everything.

 

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19

 

if you don’t mind sharing - how much v and how far up from the tail did you start it?

20

I recently trashed the board so I cannot go measure it but from memory…

The V started behind the fins (twinzer mains set at 8").

I didn’t think it was a lot when I was shaping it.

Just a touch off the tail.

Single to double to slight V off the tail.

It was loose and had great control but it bogged.

Didn’t push back when I wanted it to. Like in the middle of turns.

I’ve made about 3-5 iterations of that design now and the one with V was one of my least favorite.