Over the last five years or so it appears that a lot of people are riding wider shortboards with more parallel outlines. I guess we’re really talking about wider noses and tails in comparison with the more gunny looking shapes of the past.
The shortboard shape I have been riding for the last fifteen years or so looks like a gun compared to what I’m seeing down at the beach these days. About four years ago I started surfing a fish, and up to about eighteen months ago I was having so much fun I started to think I’d never surf my old shortboard shape again. I also made another shortboard that’s somewhere between a fish and my old shape and I started surfing this a lot as well. Meanwhile my old shortboards started gathering dust in my store-room.
I think what I have discovered recently is that surfing a fish is completely different from surfing a narrow shortboard. Sounds obvious, but I’d never really given much thought to why. I have realised that even though the fish has heaps of speed between the turns and is easy to do swooping cut-backs on, it’s very hard to put it on edge when the waves are hollow and fast. About a month ago I figured out a different way to turn my shortboard that involves moving my stance up a bit away from the tail and really feeling the rail bite into the wave, rather than merely stomping on the tail. Then yesterday I was surfing a hollow and very fast point in overhead conditions nearby with my shortboard when I dinged it up pretty badly and had to run in and grab my fish. The difference became apparent immediately. Whereas on the shortboard I was able to take a nice high speed line, on the fish I could feel the rail starting to release when I went too high. The bottom line is the fish couldn’t surf in the critcal part of the wave as well as the shortboard. Where the shortboard felt positive the fish felt skittery.
All this being said you’ve now got Kelly Slater riding Backdoor Pipe on a board that looks more like a fish than a gun. What gives? Is he just a super-human, or is there something else in the design of his boards that I’m not up to speed with.
One day you wake up and you’re 50 years old. Who gives a F what Kelly is riding ? Sounds like you are a really good surfer. Fitness is important…My surfing is based on me not Kelly. My fitness could be better but I have a full time job and a family. Ect…surf for fun , not happy with your board? build a new board. rumor has it Kelly can ride a door and make it look easy.
No matter how good of a surfer us mortals are, comparing our boards to what they’re on will utlimately lead to deceitful and misleading results. Kelly rides backdoor on a ~6’ borrd, Machado rides insane tubes in indo on a biscuit (or was it a fishcuit? I don’t remember).
Are you saying that the rail profile on these two boards is exactly the same? And so that would not affect hold?
In my mind, a straighter rail would hold a higher line on a wave than a curvy outline. But often a straight rail often comes along with a wide tail, which can be a handful on steep faces (unless you are fleet of foot, big of foot or just plain hefty!) I suppose you can have a straight rail with a narrow tail, but it would push the wide point forward.
been through a similar transition i my boards, including mini Simmons. Riding Tomo inspired designs now which I reckon cover the speed and glide, but can also be thrown around in the pocket and hold a high line and take off and turn under a throwing lip. But they are short and narrow. Ive gone now in width from 19 1/2 to 18 and so far so good. Worth exploring if you’re riding more hp shortboards.
Most people use different boards for different conditions, meaning (for example) they might use fishy boards for weaker/slower conditions and longer/narrower and more rockered boards for good conditions.
The idea that anyone is going to ride just one style of board all the time is soooo 1995. But if you like that then more power to you.
As a side note I always find it hilarious the lengths the “athletes” go to in order to ride what amounts to a fish thats camoflaged to look like a shortboard. Everyone wants what a fish does when surfed in those types of conditions but those guys don’t want to get caught dead actually riding one.
I’m 45. As I’ve aged my boards have gotten wider and thicker but I’ve stayed with the same length I’ve been riding since I was 20 years old. The answer is a quiver. I have many boards to choose from. I even still occasionally ride a potato chip early 90s board when the conditions are just right…in poweful overhead waves I’ve never had a better board.
Regarding riding tiny boards in big hollow waves…It all comes down to three factors: Balls, reflexes, and having a perfect pop-up technique. When it really is big and hollow you have to take off under the lip. There is no rolling in. If you’re taking off under the lip it really doesn’t matter how long the board is so long as you can make the rocker and rail work with the curve of the face. You’ve just got to have the balls to put yourself under the lip, the wave knowlege to know where to put yourself, quick reflexes and be quick to your feet.
In response to the OP’s original point, the stuff Bruce Fowler is doing is worth looking at. He’s making boards much wider than “normal” perform outstandingly with an appropriate application of vee and other secret sauces.
Shorter and wider covers so much these days. Nearly everything i ride (by the standards of a few years ago) falls into that catagory.
My ‘fish’ has a bit more curve than traditional, glass on twin keels, and similar volume and rails to my short boards. 5’7" x 19.5". Love highlining that thing on steep waves.
I think the move in shortboard designs to shorter and wider is brilliant for the average surfer, my ‘standard’ shortboard is shorter and wider than a few years ago. I’ve still got a couple of beaten up 6’0"s in the shed but they rarely get a look in.
Fowler is on to something. I have blatantly copied a couple of his shapes. He reminds me of Steve Brom. Both amazing shapers and both quietly making great boards.
I’m just blown away with peeps charging spots like Peahi and Tpoo on wide SUPs or longboards. Shapers on this site got the skillz to make a wide board work in heavy conditions. Just need to either be the test rider or find someone more loco…
the board Kelly rides doesn’t look like a fish to me, more like a hybrid wakeboard, and yes he can ride anything preeetty good!..
spud, to me it sounds like you’re figuring out a different way to ride a wave on a different kind of board
when I was a kid, I sometimes woudl ride a long pintail gun, but I would ride it very conservatively, from the middle mostly, and i would step forward and back often on any particular wave, to adjust trim; that was how you used to have to do it!
I’ve been on a fish now for about a decade and really haven’t looked back, and I do think it is a matter of how you ride it versus the wave, and making adjustments, it really keeps me thinking
and, I really like your observations spuddups, it make me think about this dilemna - one thing I really miss on my fish is that freedom to spontaneously break free
hey, karl, have you tried a tomo inspred board that is mor like 21 wide and mabye mid-length? just curious, I wonder how that’d work?!
My experience and understanding is that wide boards work better with double concave, I was taught to think like its almost like splitting the board in two making a wide board behave more like a narrow board. That theory seems to have served me well. A lot of the wide single concaves have felt to me that they lacked bite while turning, just my experience.
In case anyone was was wondering, my shortboard (6’3") and fish (5’10") have basically the same rail profile. My fish has a pretty rolled deck though as it has a heap of volume under my chest. I would guess that the fish has more foam than the shortboard. I think I based the outline of the fish on one of those Lost boards. If I could summarise the difference between the two it’s that the fish is harder to put onto the rail, but flows from turn to turn better.
