This image is just a quick mock-up–the outline of the board did not look EXACTLY like the one pictured. The wide-point was more forward, and the wings were cut after it.
The board was a twin-fin. It reminded me of a fish, but with a different rear end. It was also fairly thick/wide. How would something like this handle in 3-5ft punchy surf compared to a fish? Are there advantages to this kind of a tail? The guy at the shop said that the stinger-tail won’t come up out of the water like a fish-tail might.
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back then it seems the industry came out with a 'New Hot Thing You Gotta Have' every year, so you'd be convinced you had to get a new board every year.
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More seriously, wings and stingers and so on were hot for a year or two in the '70s.
What did they do? They sold boards is what they did. Y’see, back then it seems the industry came out with a ‘New Hot Thing You Gotta Have’ every year, so you’d be convinced you had to get a new board every year. The market had pretty much peaked and so they did that stuff to keep selling boards. And surfers bought into that annual ritual for a long time.
Have a look at the timeline on surfresearch for an idea of what that was like, the very different stuff they’d do every year. The market started to decline in the '80s and possibly surfers as a group started to get wise to some of the hype and bogus shapes. Possibly… in any event, the ‘New Hot Thing’ bit kinda faded away.
They (wingers) are a pain to glass, they tend to bang into things, bust the corners and need repair often and they can be a pain to repair. Which is why I loved them, made a lot of money fixing wingers and their near contemporaries the swallowtails.
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''The guy at the shop said....''
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You have tapped into the single GREATEST source of misinformation, on the planet. (except for the one who shall not be named)
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You know, its funny you mention this.
Awhile back I was looking through an unnamed surfing magazine, and they had a "shapers' special edition" or something to that effect - you know, the one where half the magazine is showing all kinds of shapes for various brands, and then the shaper writes a paragraph for each board, and a couple paragraphs about how they got into shaping or whatever.
I was kind of shocked at the myth and misinformation that I saw in print in that issue. I almost typed up some of the stuff verbatim and posted it on here just for laughs, or to see what anyone else thought about it, then I had second thoughts and decided that would probably be inappropriate.
Anyway, its no wonder the shop owners get tangled up if they read and believe all of that stuff.
And to be fair, some of the shapers had some really good info too.
Like Bill said, ignore the store guy. Go to the source. This is the best full explaination of what tails do I have ever seen. It has taken me years to find out what you will in a few minutes. Love the internet.......
I think the tail width has more to do with which pops out first. Fish tails are wider and so usally pop out first. That stinger is a loosened up pin tail but still pin tail. I would say it would throw more water, handle tubes better, spin out less but not go up and down as fast or as often
In That time when stingers were first making their presents known Aipa would come over in the summer to Calif and shape with Takamama at Surfing's new Image in Solana Beach. He often brought over some of the young hot kids from town. The first time I ever saw Bertelmann surf was a small south swell at Blacks. Watching him was a real eye opening experience. he was finding tubes on waves that didn't seem to have any. It was a very impressive performance of small wave surfing. He was surfing one of the early shallow tail stingers with a step bottom. Aipa was influenced by the hull design of hydroplane boats that had step bottoms. I rode one for a time it was a really fun board in just about everything until the surf was over head then it seemed to be too squirrely at least under my un-talented feet.
herb: i have only owned 1 stinger , and not for long as it broke where the wings were… you really threw me a curve ball here on the backside call… my board was thee best backside board i have ever owned… was loose enough to really open up my backside… but was way too squirrely frontside… jus all over the place and really hard to control… it went where it wanted and not where i wanted to go frontside …