The Firewire Fights or Board Porn gone bad (Warning Picture Heavy)

General Discussion
121

got in three decent sessions in this weekend

went in with little if no expectations

came out quite pleasantly surprised and quite happy.

Discovered the primary issue was that the board even at 6’2" is a bit floaty being EPS which means very little give as you are pushing down so instead of fighting that feeling I just adjusted and rode it like a my other surftechs and everything clicked. The board comes to life the more you flick it horizintally around versus driving downward to get action out of the fins.

the lightness translates into swiftness but a swiftness more in directional change than drivey speed but pumping with alot of directional changes can inturn translate into speed. The overall affect is more of a frantic jerkiness in keeping the momentum up versus a slower drivier style. I not saying that any of this is bad just requires a bit faster approach more on top of it approach that a 70’s era surfer like me is used to. The surfer could be the problem as well.

The quickness is alot of fun as is the extra floatation.

Example

took off late on a close out

as I shake spray from my eyes and hit the bottom I see the whole wave closing out on me with no where to go

so I say what the hell and launch it straight up at the lip and catching it as it pitching over about halfway up.

because the board is so light and floaty I bounce off the lip and ride the white water backdown for at least one oh ya he planned that move in a wave that had none. This is where the quickness, lightness and floatiness all add up as one big positive.

The only problem I see is that it’s a twin fin fish and pivots like a twin fin fish versus driving like a thruster and that’s just a design issue. But also being a fish the board is a very fast down the line style board although I think it would max out at speed and start to lift.

Again the secret I guess is don’t expect anything and let the board tell you what it wants to say then go with it instead of forcing it to do what you want it do to and you’re bound to be pleasantly surprised with what you find.

More tests in some size coming up…

On the other side of the coin got to mach10 on the 5fin this morning felt like curren at indo eventhough it was a 1/4 of the size. The boys were a bit surprised how far down the line I popped out on some of the waves I got. It wasn’t too much fun ending up having to paddle back out in piles and pile of turtle poop all around me which looked manmade to me. Looked like a sewage spill until the boys said there were too many turtles around lately and that it was turtle poo. Still sucked to be face level in that so I went in. Also turtles begat tigers. Good with the bad I guess.

testing continues

122

thanks for that bernie !

finally some more good practical feedback … you know THAT’S the stuff I like to read !!

so ,

when will you be filming Harry floating the “turtle poop soup” on the Firewire board ?

cheers  



   ben
123

Update

Board is now in the hands of Bill and Greg on the Northshore

It’s their turn to give their review of the new tech…

Bet we’re gonna some painted wood rails this winter…

I believe glassers call it Falsa

Next up…

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I saw the Firewire when picking my twin up from Bill today. I will make a set of fins for it that will completly change the board for the better.Get ready for a tuned Firewire.

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Eh Brah, funny you mention turtle pooh. I took a half day off to celebrate being another year older out at courts. There was a lot of turtle pooh at courts. I didn’t notice it but other guys told me about it. I told then it’s probably from the tourists, but they said it was from turtles.

It took a few waves, but the 5-fin worked as expected. I tried to blast the lip a little too hard hard and went a little airborne. Wasn’t ready for it and I ended up slamming down and doing a face plant in the wave. Kept the legs a little more bent after that and the board worked like a charm.

I think other guys are beginning to see the merits of the 5 fin design. Several other guys were telling me that they’re seeing others using 5 fins and that the holding on turns seems to be impressive. My friend Glenn, the glasser, said he has a 7 fin setup. Sounds like the board Ben (chipfish) keeps showing with several plugs to setup the board as a tri, quad, twin, or 5 fin. Glenn said it works better with a small middle fin in, a 5fin versus a quad.

I think more guys are getting interested in the 5 fin setup, but other than Chase, they are riding boards made but others. One guy is riding an older Aipa 5 fin fish that was made for Glenn. I thought it was a twin, but Glenn said it’s a 5 fin.

Saturday I showed some guys the boards and they were more interested in the fins than the board. I kept getting asked to show the fins, and they wanted to see and feel how they were foiled. I think Grif’s gonna make your new board better.

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Quote:

I think Grif’s gonna make your new board better.

Yeah I can’t wait to see what he does

even Bill said the stock FCS fins weren’t foiled very well.

that’s the one thing no one gets

that it’s all about “all” how the components fit togethor.

be interested to hear what Bill and Griff have to say after riding it.

no matter how griff can make it better

it won’t be as good as one of his 5 fin fishes.

attack of the clones!

had a nice conversation with Bill and met one of his old glasser legend friends.

both knew and respected Butchy P real well

and were kind of surprised we also knew him from our Sharkcountry days

it was hard to believe he is only a couple years older than us

since those guys seem like surf gods to us groms back then

it’s amazing how many really good surfers are from Ewa Beach

a place that has the worst waves on the whole island.

guess it’s that florida thing…

junk waves = open mindedness to design options to extra speed

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Did some diggin and theorizing Bernie…seems like the objective of the 5 fin application here is for solid engagemnent on a wide tailed board. Just looking at this pic if you take away the trailing rail fins you’d have a pretty std looking thruster setup. Prob is that a std thruster setup on a wide tailed fish isnt gonna hold you in there when youre really burying the rail hard (tilting the board over) and deep at the bottom (Ive felt this happen even on not so wide tailed setups). So, add in smaller rail fin trailers and bingo, problem solved. Perhaps this setup would require lots of fin size tweaking so as not to get too draggy in less then optimal conditions.

My curiosity stems from the basic difference between this and say a 5 fin bonzer. Seems like a 5 fin bonzer is more of a single with added drive (faster down the line), whereas the Grif 5 is more of a Quad with thruster drive…does that make any sense?

Interesting setup…would love to try one soon.

Cheers

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do you think craftee

that it is an optimal setup for more powerful waves

where drag isnt as much an issue?

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There a quite a few pics of GG’s boards and all are not wide tailed fish. For example; http://www.swaylocks.com/resources/detail_page.cgi?ID=1632

A wider tail, perhaps, to fit the extra fins but not that much wider? More drive than a standard 3 fin? Faster, looser?

GG mentions his G10 fins. How are these different?

I have been following this thread (and others elsewhere on the design) with great interest and trying to unserstand as much as I can on Greg’s 5 fin design.

Like the hull or SUP threads guys here on Sways want to see and build their own for themselves only…

Greg, I respect your Intellectual Property if you do want to tell :wink:

thanks!

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MeeC.

you’re right but there’s alot more behind it.

It’s very very techinical and I suggest anyone interest either PM or call Griff to talk about it.

It has alot to do with the outline curve

tail rocker

the exact placement of the rear sides

and the height, rake, foil and stiffness of all the fins.

he has charts and charts to go over this stuff

Griff tailors all that for the rider and break the board will be used by.

It’s pretty complicated and I confess I don’t really understand how they work other than what happens when you actually use them in different circumstances which is really all that matters in the long run I guess.

As far as comparison to a 5 fin bonzer.

I had and rode one of those in the 90’s

a rawson 5 fin mini-swallow built for Davey Miller I got used from Surf and Sail

it sure was fast but I didn’t like the way it eventually pivoted of the large single in the turn.

in my view there’s no comparison

no comparison to a gemini either

Griffs 5-fin fish is hands down the better board

There was an article in the latest surfer other than the Parmenter/Lynch one that talked about the one perfect board and it was mentioned that the quad fish was possibly it. In my view of reality the board you showed by Griff could possibly be that one perfect board for almost all occasions as it solves alot of different problems you get regarding paddling, wide tails, and creating and managing speed…

It’s too bad the rest of the world outside of a few lucky ones will ever get the chance to experience what my brother and I and a select few are finding out for ourselves… Sometimes great ideas can be very threatenng to the status quo so they get erased until they can be adequately copied… Just ask Bert…

Don’t all of us dream to work with a shaper who will spend the time to tweak our boards to make them work to their absolute best as to how we want them to work versus some off the shelf or out the door see you later take or leave it solution? Unfortunately most of the crew doesn’t remember those days when it was more about perfection than volume…

Just got off the phone with Griff and he’s excited to be able to make some G10 Keels of his own design that he feels will make this off the shelf Firewire fish I paid big bucks for a much better performing board… He said it’s a good design, just has poorly made and positioned fins…

Now that’s the kind of board maker I want to be working with…

131

Paul

there’s no drag

that’s a misconception

people see more fins they instantly think drag

the boards are being tested everywhere from california to baja to the worlds worst wave, white plains barbers point (according to SunnyG/KekoaB) to the screaming walls of Laniakea and inside Sunset.

the 3 back fins are very small compared to the 2 front fins

but position, cord and foil are the most important aspects.

things I don’t really understand that well other than the reaction of waves to fin to applied foot pressure is up and forward.

The feeling we all are getting is that as you press down with your rear foot you get lift and forward movement which is interpreted as thrust or feels like it. So the more you press with your back foot like you would normally do driving off the tail on a standard thruster the faster you can get the board to move forward. Then as you engage it at speed on rail such as in a big bottom turn, snap or shoulder carve the two fins positioned out closer to the rail assist the forward larger fin to provide a continuous drive throughout the turn tighter and tighter with out losing any momentum. Going vertical or past vertical off the bottom is very easy to do because of it which is unusual for a 21"x6’2" stubby.

Even as I say this I don’t know if I’m explaining it right. But you can feel it when you surf it. That’s why those that get a chance to demo them usually order one right away or try to keep the demo.

It’s really weird cause you’re on this fat short stubby fish board with a lot of floatation and big wide tail, but you can ride it exactly how you would ride your 6’2" potato chip hard off the back foot and it rides as good if not better than the chip in both slop and double overhead (12’+ faces). A board small enough to push under good sized white water but thick and wide enough to not struggle paddling in or having to do the bunny hop when the power drops off. The nice thing about all this is you maintain the same technique riding a short fatty or a high performance minigun.

The firewire when I rode it tended to pivot off the inside keel or at least drive up to the point where the keel gave out and then lost momentum if you didn’t engage the fin on the other rail quick enough. Since the board was so light and floaty this happened very fast. So if you kept busy and moved it around a bit it flew but you kind of felt like a surfer on crack versus driving through your turns. I think the key thing I’ve heard from some other test pilots is you need to get these boards a heck of alot smaller than you’d ever get in a poly because of the float and reaction of the perimeter rail. Probably a 5’8" or 5’10" might feel better under my feet.

Griff thinks that if he pulls the fins back and out a tad closer to the rail and changes the foil of the keel he’ll be able to put more drive in the board so it’ll work more like his board. I told him I’m game to give it a go when he’s ready.

We’ll have to also see what Bill Barnfield has to say if he can get some time to get it into the water during this upcoming northshore swell. I can’t wait to see his review of the board.

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this is gresat stuff Bernie thanks heaps for sharing this !

I am following this with great interest .

q:

the firewire fish backside off the lip , compared with the Griffin 5 fin backside off the lip ?

coments , please ?

[for example : hangups ?

acceleration ?

stop / start vs 'flow ’ in and out of the turn ?

reaction time ? ]

cheers mate !

ben

133
Quote:

The feeling we all are getting is that as you press down with your rear foot you get lift and forward movement which is interpreted as thrust or feels like it. So the more you press with your back foot like you would normally do driving off the tail on a standard thruster the faster you can get the board to move forward. Then as you engage it at speed on rail such as in a big bottom turn, snap or shoulder carve the two fins positioned out closer to the rail assist the forward larger fin to provide a continuous drive throughout the turn tighter and tighter with out losing any momentum.

You’ve posted a couple times how Greg’s design excels when surfed off the back foot. I’ve got a potential opportunity to pick up one of his boards used right now (6’6x20.5x2 5/8 swallowtail, 5 fin) and was wondering if this heavy back foot style is necessary for the board to really work. I’ve been paying attention to my surfing, and I’m pretty heavy on the front foot. That’s why I’m building a fish. But when I saw this board for sale started drooling after reading all your reviews. What do you think about the design for someone like myself who is front foot heavy, and really only just learning to ride a shortboard?

Oh, and for eye candy, here’s a link to the board:

http://forum.surfermag.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=UBB4&Number=988198&Searchpage=3&Main=988198&Words=griffinsurfboard&topic=&Search=true#loop

Pat

134

I’d really like to wait and hear back from the pros up on the northshore cause that’s the real test.

Sorry

but this got long,

you can quit here and wait for Bill’s writeup…

but these boards are incredibly light it’s really hard to explain but those that have felt one in person can understand what I’m saying I think. Way lighter than you would imagine and a heck of alot of float for their size… Amazing stuff…

Two weeks ago I got to ride my Griff 5-fin at my home spot Sharkcountry in some waves with 8’-10’ faces about 3-4 hawaiian scale. The wave is thick with a slight air drop into a thick but powerful wave at least for the area. It’s my favorite backhand wave of all time since I grew up surfing their since about 1966.

As usual I was sitting outside (2fa’au as my brother likes to say) being a bouy talking story with my surfing friends 5-10 years younger riding their longboards. All the shortborders are like 25-50 yards further in hopping the inside peak. So in order to catch anything I have to take off very deep inside or behind the outside bowl and very late. Normally on a fish I would be doomed trying to come around the already broken whitewater from the bowl into the next section. This is exactly where all the shortboards are shoulder hopping to grab the juicy part of the wave. But with the 5-fin I was able to drive straight down and just plant all my 200lbs on my back foot right over the butt crack and hold it there engaging the entire inside rail driivng just along and under the edge of the white water until I blew past it up into the shoulder placing all my weight again to the inside of my back foot somewhat upside down to bring it back down in one big arc (hopefully to spray the hoppers) to setup for the inside bowl. Need less to say this move is very hard to do with a 21" wide fish even a quad. It was last year trying to pull this move off with my Gemini that I popped my knee when I got constantly mowed over by the white water at exactly the wrong time. On a high performance thruster this is a no brainer if you know how the wave works.

So that’s the scenario and on that day no one dropped in even all the goofy’s as I must of sprayed them good. Guys will always size you up and if there’s any chance they’ll take it so you have to make them believe your coming through and coming through at speed to splash them to make them back off.

With the firewire because it’s so light and so tweaky I cannot lay in to the rail with that much torque and for that much time backside with out it wanting to spin right up into vertical right away right into the white water. I guess if I was good enough like some of the pros out here I could just be lightfooted enough to bang it off the white water several times until I got past the section versus on powerful grind around and under the broken section I’ve seen Dustin Quizon do that. So the firewire is fast but only as a result of engaging the left and right fins in an up and down or left or right motion versus that the classic bury the half the rail carve you’d get off a thruster. But again in my opinion that’s just a design issue of a twin fish versus a thruster squash design like the Flexfire or Alternator models. The lightness comes into play when you have a smooth clean face to work off of and want to just drive straight up and straight down in rapid succession and then hop on top of the close out. That’s where this board will shine in clean no wind 5-8’ faces smoking down the line front or backside lots of snaps lots of airs but no power…

As far as acceleration

the speed from an ultralight fish design like this Firewire comes form constantly engaging the fins in a pump. The Griff 5fin is smoother with an accelerator you can call up at any time. So if I’m looking at a pitching section ahead I’m going to have to pump and wiggle the Firewire like a madman to keep it going to make it through where as with the griff I just pick my line step on the accelerator (tail) when I need it and drive forward when I don’t its a lot less hectic achieving the same goal. With the 5-fin It’s kind of like having a supercharger under the hood and because you know you have the acceleration to match the power of the situation at anytime it instills alot of confidence in how you approach your line versus being in a turn frenzy all the time.

Like you said you need a fast reaction time and the ability to manage alot of really small turns or adjustments to make something as light as this Firewire absolutely fly and most really good young surfers have this type of surfing mastered growing up in the age of pro surfing manuevers. Surfing style has alot to do with it. So if your surfing just explodes with poly ultralights then these boards will fit the need for a durable ultralight performance board. But if you tend to pick and hang in the power lines of a wave with big drivey rails out turns you’re gonna want something a little heavier especially if there’s any significant side or offshore wind.

That’s why I get a kick out of watching all the hot tour pros just lose it here at sunset or other places on the northshore with all their fancy moves before just getting creamed by the lip. They look so frenetic and out of sync with the power. Where as guys like Tom Carroll or Sunny or Occy or even Parko and Jake are tapping into the power lines just demolishing the lip with the power from the spray of their cutbacks. The final of the Haleiwa Wyland that Curren won on the no label Maurice with Pottz and Sunny as well as the Bells skins contest Occy won go down as excellent examples of managing power with control, just huge gashes everywhere…

Controlled Speed and Power surfing versus Manuevers and Big Air

That kind of sums up the difference in my laymans view…

So none of it is bad it’s just your preference

what’s the slang?

“it’s all good!”

135

SFP

it’ll work off the front

but you won’t get the turbocharged action

you get when you step on or around the butt crack

off the front it’ll ride as good as any fish out there quad or twin.

hmmm i wonder who’s selling theirs…

gonna be collector items soon anyway of things keep going the way they are here…

I have a custom mandala quad

and that works real well as a front footer as does this firewire fish.

I think this is why long boarders slip into fish so well.

if you’re really heavy front foot I’d go classic pavel speedialer or something similar

front and back footing are really different techniques…

as far as that board I’m looking at getting a similar 6’6"-6’8" high performance shape 5 fin for the country soon

136

Thanks,

I think I’ll try to get the board and see if my technique can be tweaked to make it right. If not, my HWS fish should be done by the end of the week. I’m just waiting on some warm weather for a couple epoxy touch ups.

Can’t wait to hear how the firewire goew with Griffin’s updated fins.

Pat

137

question for oneula

how much volume is in the Firewire rail?

Obviously when you put the stringer on the rail you get some advantages.

But also, the snappage strength depends on the stringer thickness, and for Firewire the stringer is ON the rail. That means you need to carry some thickness very close to the rail.

Boards with thick rails do well in smaller waves, but you cannot sink the rail to do a deeper turn in faster waves…boards for faster waves, like Hawaiian reefs, tend to have rails with less volume…

Great surfers can use thicker rails in bigger waves, I’ve heard Sunny uses big blocky rails in everything…but a deep bottom turn on a board with thicker rails in bigger surf is more challenging…

I was hoping oneula could comment on the rail volume present in the Firewire compared to the Grif Five Fin Favorite

hope this is clear enough…

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“But also, the snappage strength depends on the stringer thickness, and for Firewire the stringer is ON the rail. That means you need to carry some thickness very close to the rail.”

Hi Dave -

Agreed. Maybe they do bury a horizontal stringer/“springer” like Bert showed in one of his posts? Hard to say how close Firewire is following Bert’s secrets he was working on. I wonder if the fact that there are two perimeter stringers makes up for the lack of thickness of a single stringer in the center?

139

the FW fish has a flat deck i,e, blocky rails

Griffin domes his deck a tad but his rail on my board is fairly full and that’s because I normally don’t ride 6’2"s so he took the thickness out to the rail since its less than 3" thick. The FW is at least 3/16"-1/4" thinner than the Griff Fish

My smallest board prior to the Griff was my 6’4" mandala quad which was 3" thick out to the rail so the FW has alot of float for it’s size way more than the Griff and it both paddles and duck dives well. It does not like any type of wind or bump on the face though.

Bill thought it was a little too short and stubby to have present and real flex because of the perimeter rails so who knows.

It’s very hard to drive the rail of a super light weight stubby floaty board with 7" wide keels compared to a thruster. Maybe if the deck was concaved instead of flat, there’d be a different reaction on rail. The huge based keel’s tendancy is to pull a longer line or a stationary pivot. All the twins I’ve tried no matter the tail width have done this without that little rear stabilizer with the exception of Griff’s twin. But his fins are pushed way back on the tail. With the FW I’d only expect off rail to get to 9:00 or 9:30 coming off a 6:00 drop straight down with the 5 fin I could keep pushing off the tail to easily achieve 12:00 on rail. It not the board as much as the rider at this point so more rider opinions will round out out the performance aspect of the board.

I can’t measure it now cause Bill has the board for testing. I’m sure he can add alot from his perspective once he gets some time to check it out. If I was generous enough I’d pass it among all the swayheads to check out for themselves but we’ll have to see about that.

As far as rail volume

I don’t know if I’m as big as Sunny unless he’s under 190-200 but coming from the early 70’s I like my rails thick so I can bury them hard without them biting in. Thick and down just like those classic Tom Parrish beak nose rounded pins I grew up on. Big @ss bottom turns and roundhouses in bumpy and windy surf was our schooling back then which probably isn’t too conducive to extreme light board high performance surfing required by this equipment. Believe I did my best to try and pop those fins off to test the stupid FCS rumor with no success but on the northshore it might be another story though.

As far as the Griff 5-fin since this topic is getting so much attention…

don’t misinterpret what I’m saying here…

for me personally the 5-fin is a better board than the Firewire but your comparing an off the shelf ebay purchase versus a locally made custom and according to the two shapers I showed it to the standard FW FCS fins suck. The best thing for everyone to do is to find out for yourselves what you like or don’t like and not take someones word like me about what is or what isn’t. There are other problems with the 5fin primarily durability and the fish design. But as an all round board for most of the places I surf it’s a perfect fit for me just me and I’m not you… if the surfing world had it’s way you’d only surf what they allowed you to surf and in some ways they are already controlling this. Most of you will never have access to some of this stuff because that’s how people want it to be especially thos not in a “money making market”. There’s also nothing wrong with keeping you beater forever, staying of the computer and away from the media and just devoting the time to perfect your skills in all conditions with the same old equipment. Something to think about but people are more interested in how you surf versus what you surf unless you’re not actually surfing.

Don’t be a lemming and find out for yourself. Build your own or find a good local builder who’ll work with you instead of just befriending your money, then decide what works best for you where and how you surf not me believe me you don’t want to surf like me…

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Griffin’s 5 fin fish can be surfed from the middle (front foot) or from the back (rear foot). I think the fun is when you get into something at least 6’ or 7’ high in the face, step on the back and just layout a really hard turn. It just flies, and holds very solid. You can also make 270 degree top turns because the board is so short, and it holds. This is a performance board. Probably be the perfect board for all waves if there wasn’t such a big crowd on the smaller days. I still prefer bringing my 8’ log for the smaller days.

I wouldn’t have a problem using this board in waves on Oahu’s south shore that are as big as I can paddle into, and I’ve been out on days when they were about 10’-15’ faces and closing out. The nise thing about this board, is that you can stand on it and get it to go under water to push through when you get caught inside on a set. Sometimes paddling into the bigger waves is tricky, but I’ve been able to air drop into waves and as long as I hit the bottom flat, it will hold. Then I just ride it down below the white water, lay it on edge and turn right into the hook or barrel. I often drop into waves behind other guys because it’s a little harder to take off early, but I can easily ride back there and have a great time going straight up and down in the sweet spot while they ride up in front.

If you ever get a chance to ride one of these boards, you should do it. I’ve had a couple of guys say they were going to call Greg as soon as they got home after letting them ride it for a while. Some guys are asking me if Greg would make one of these about 7’ long so they can catch more waves. They also really like the foil on the front fins. There’s something special about those front fins.