I am making a wave specific board for a beachbreak, sand bottom wave that breaks at 4’-8’, very steep takeoff, very hollow and fast. You can occasionally hit the lip once or do a rail burying power cutty at the end, but its mainly a drop in and barrel ride to the end tube machine. I know the pintail is supposed to be the best for this situation, but I have ALWAYS ridden swallowtails and therefore a little hesistant about making a pintail that will only get used during hurricane swells. I came up with an alternate roundtail design (on the left) and was wondering how much noticeable difference in between the 2 designs there would be. I would feel more comfortable on the wider tail, but if the ride is going to be a lot different and a lot better suited to that wave, I could learn to ride the pintail. Any comments appreciated.
I rode swallowtails for many years in such waves, until I changed genrally to rounded pintails. And to me there’s a different type of hollow wave each tail does best on. If you need to generate speed beteen multiple hollow sections, I think the higher area swallow is what I want to run out a little and connect. But if the wave peels evenly and the board doesn’t need to be encouraged or pumped, I prefer a rounded pintail to carve closer to the barrel. So regardless of how hollow, does your wave peel, or section? Also I don’t like the feel of too rounded a tail. They kind of smooth things out too much for my taste, and I like to get a little bit of a fast hard turn when I need it and both swallows and roundpins give me that feel.
headhigh, that is pretty much what this board was made for. 6’2" x 19" x 2.25", low rails and thinned out tail. Since I typically like boards with less foam (especially in the rails), which also have less float/padddle (the unfortunate side-effect of the latter), I went with a pulled-inand rounded squash rather than a pin. I would suspect the board would work just as well with a narrow swallow.
Tubedog, its more of a single section peeler. I’m using a 2 5/8" thick 6’4" Dwing swallow there now and its just not cutting the mustard. I’m having to pull up on my outside rail dropping in backside just to get down the face.
Nice board Hackeysackey. Pretty much the same shape I’m interested in except for the tail style. yeah, I am thinking of keeping the thickness the same as my current board and adding a little more volume to the rails to try and get in to the wave a little earlier.
Got the picture of the 2 boards up now. Will the board on the left do the job or do I need more of a pintail shape?
My choice would be board on the right. But that’s what I’m seeing only on one single still shot. But that shot looks like a good fast hollow wave where I’d enjoy a good rounded pin. How wide would the board be ? If 18.75, then around a 13.25 -13.5 tail should give you a good curve with a rounded pin, wide enough by the fins to give speed and ease, yet not too gunny. A well done rounded pin outline is my choice to really drop in smoothly on a fast sucking hollow wave.
