hi guys i shaped a 6'2ft retro fish a few months back and i have been surfing it and am finding that it has some " bad habits" i am guessing from my beginner shaping skills
so i need some advice on where i went wrong before i do a better re shape of same board.
problems are that the board seems slow and slugish, i am guessing that could be to do with the entry/exit rocker and or drag from the fins.
the board turns ok rail to rail but just has no speed. may just be my surfing but this board feels much slow than my 6'10, and 6,4 shop bought boards.
also i have found that if i put my front foot right up 18 inchs down from nose when surfing it picks up a bit more speed but i feel a bit like i am doing the splits with my foot that far forward and that no fun
also i have had no end of trouble with the keels i foiled, they hummed real bad and so i tryed cleaning up the tail edges and that helped a little but i think i will remove them and put fcs plugs in as i have not got the fin making/design thing down yet
so heres the board specs and some pics
EPS 6'2ft - 21 7/8 - 2 1/4 entry rocker is 3 7/8 tip 1 1/2 ( 1 foot down from nose) exit rocker 1 7/8 tail tips 7/8th ( 1 foot up from tips) tips are 4 inchs long tip to tip width is 12 inchs
board wide point is 4 ich past center on the bottom of board flat in nose, 14 inch slight concave starting 1 inch behind center heading up towards nose. then from 2inch behind center blends in to vee out to end of board
any way hopefully you guys can point out the design faults the make this board slow so i do not repeat them in next one
The only things I can think of to suggest, without seeing the board for myself and taking it for a spin, are these:
Too much rocker in the tail. You’ve got almost two inches of tail rocker, and retro fish are much flatter. Combine that with a little extra length (depending on your size, you may not need to go over 6’0) and you might be creating some unnecessary drag.
Too much going on on the bottom. In my opinion, you don’t need the concave up front. Flat in the front half to vee or flat to light double concave works best for speed. I’m guessing you wanted to flatten the rocker in the entry for easy wave catching? That concave up front will make the board want to lift under your front foot… which explains why you get more speed moving your front foot forward. Combine that with vee in the back and you’ve got a board that’s “tail heavy” in the water… the front wants to come up, the back wants to settle down, and you’ve got a pitch problem.
The fins are too far back. Maybe toed in too much. I’m thinking that to turn, you put your back foot over the fins. You also have a really wide tail. In order to turn, you are really going to need to force the back of the board. To accelerate, you weight in front of the rocker apex. That gets your split stance going.
The more you deveate from the High Performance Short Board the lower your performance will be. There really is a reason that almost all high performance boards look the same. They work.
Watch the tail’s edge, too. It doesn’t look too sharp in the photos. But I tend to agree with nj_surfer about rocker. Probably too much but what’s even more important than figures is the curve. Also, what’s the toe-in of those fins?
Of course your 6'2 is gonna be slower than your 6'4 or6'10, because it is shorter. When you try an FCS fin instalation don't tow in so much, and that might help. that's my only suggestion, other than that, good luck.
I don’t think you have too much tail rocker. I think your rocker curve has too low of a radius, i.e. it increases too quickly, or sharply. You need a higher radius, longer curve, that will make the tail section less curved and more flat.
You need to measure the tail closer to center, and in smaller incriments. You can see that the rocker increased dramatically from about 2’-2.5’ from the tail. If you are going to have a dramatic increase behind the center it should be closer to the tail.
Judging from the photos, your tail looks really thick for a wide tail. When you have too much volume in the tail boards tend to bog down. Don’t know the reason, but I am going off of past experiences.
The board look pretty good to me. I'd say stick with it. Ride it for a few weeks. I'll bet that in the right conditions it'll light up. Once you've figured out what kind of waves it likes, save it for those days. That's what quivers are all about.
Im far from an expert, but i had a magic home made retro fish that had 2 1/4'' tail rocker, and the tail was quite thick. It went like lightning. Just my .02c.
Gotta get the water in smooth and then let the water out the back.
As much wiser, more experienced people have said above, the concave in the front pulls the water in, then it hits the vee and stops. If rocker’s deep, then just getting the water under the deep point is a struggle - it gets squeezed out the sides.
So if i remove the keels and replace with fcs plugs where would you guys recomend placing them ie ( how far in from rail edge and what toe and cant). I was thinking of using some FG-7 fins i have lying around for right now.
the convace in board is very shallow so i may try to remove it by re hot coating the board after i remove the keels ( as board is just sanded finish), hopefully that will simple up the bottom a bit ( flat in vee )
the quetion is am i just wasting my time doing this with little to no speed gain becasue of the boards rocker?
any way right now the keels are 5 1/4 up from the tale 1 1/8 in from the rail 3/16 toe at 4 inchs up from the tail of fin and 5deg cant. i took a strait edge and lined it up past the nose it ended up just under 2 inches of the center of nose
thanks again for the imput and would real be keen for advice on the new fin placement
i made the board 6'2 as i am 97kg and like a little more float
So if i remove the keels and replace with fcs plugs where would you guys recomend placing them ie ( how far in from rail edge and what toe and cant). I was thinking of using some FG-7 fins i have lying around for right now.
the convace in board is very shallow so i may try to remove it by re hot coating the board after i remove the keels ( as board is just sanded finish), hopefully that will simple up the bottom a bit ( flat in vee )
the quetion is am i just wasting my time doing this with little to no speed gain becasue of the boards rocker?
any way right now the keels are 5 1/4 up from the tale 1 1/8 in from the rail 3/16 toe at 4 inchs up from the tail of fin and 5deg cant. i took a strait edge and lined it up past the nose it ended up just under 2 inches of the center of nose
thanks again for the imput and would real be keen for advice on the new fin placement
i made the board 6'2 as i am 97kg and like a little more float
cheers antony
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Hey mate, if the tail rocker is too high/curve starts too early, move the fins forward. I did this to a twinny i made. I basically cut too much off the blank length wise, so the tail rocker started too early ( if that makes sense ). I added another set of plugs in front of the original ones, to move the fins forward. Seemed to help. Also, i had a quad/twinny hehe.
5 1/4 sounds a bit too far back with that tail rocker problem, but im no expert.
Your board looks great to me! Outline is clean and even, rails look good.
My guess is that your rocker numbers were taken after you put the concaves in. Depending on how your rocker was before the concaves were put in and also how you cut your concaves you might have too much rail line rocker for the waves your riding it in.
Your 1 1/2" of nose rocker may be more like 1 3/4" at the rail. For something like a stepup in good surf is great but for a wide nosed fish may not be so great in slow waves. If that is so and the same applies to the tail your overall rocker may be a bit much for slow fishy type waves. If you take it out in more powerfull steeper waves and it goes like hell then you’ll know that it is the rocker.
There is pretty much nothing you can do about the entry rocker. But If you want to revamp the board cut the fins off, build a resin dam at the tail and flatten out the tail rocker with a bit of resin. That way you can re-profile that rail edge at the tail and give it a nice sharp edge. Install some fin plugs for a quad and start playing with fins. A good quad set can make a doggy board come alive.
hey heres the board balanced on a chair so you can see rocker side on, cut the fins off and board now ready to tidy up bottom and instal plugs, just need some imput on fin placement
I’d put them 7 1/4 up from the tips, 1 1/8 from the rail, 1/8" toe, 4 degrees cant. But I expect you’ll get a lot of different suggestions on this one.
