So I’m visiting on the right coast and riding borrowed boards. The main one is a nose-rider shape: relatively flat rocker, lifted tail, pivot fin. But the rails are different from those of my own, dedicated nose rider in that they are pretty “bladey”, 50/50 as opposed to fuller, “eggier”, 50/50 type and the outermost edge is “lifted” (maybe 60/40, as opposed to “neutral” or “down” towards the tail).
I’ve not previously ridden a board with rails like this. This board seems inclined to constantly ride high in the face of the wave. Are these “lifted” rails in the tail the probable cause of this board’s tendency to want to climb up the face of the wave when trimmed?
After looking at some of Kevin Connelly’s boards I tried an up rail in the tail of a few of my noseriders. I like LeeD’s description of creating drag and slowing the board down. These were very slow boards and seemed to get caught/sucked back into the wave/whitewater. They are very strange looking tails in the end and not the norm as far as I know. Give and take with every feature I guess. I wonder if a knifey thinned out 50’50 tail does the same thing.
I was riding this thing in an offshore wind, as well, which was exacerbating the board’s tendency to behave in the ways described above. Rather than accelerating when trimmed (as I am used to) it wanted to “hang” or stall mid-face. Very odd feeling…
The “square” tail was also a big “scallop” rather than being straight across like a normal square tail.
For sure different from anything I’ve previously ridden…
One of the better explainations about boards designed for noseriding. Be sure to watch all four parts. Explains up rails in tail and down rails in nose.