So recently a friend of mine gave me a half cut out blank that he mismeasured so I could work some more on my shaping skills and get my hands on som new foam. Its 5’0, 21 inches wide with a tail width of 13.5 inches. I’m thinking about maing a mini simmons with keel fins out of it but its a but thin. I think a fish tail would be gnarly but I dont know if it would take off to much foam. What do you guys think I should shape? I weigh like 120 pounds so I dont need to much volume to get me going.
When you say 13.5 tail width do you mean across the back, or at 1’ up from the tail?
I’m 120lbs, 5’5" (5’4.5" if you want to be picky) and I’d ride that. I regularly ride a 5’4" and I could see it losing 4 inches. Might as well just pop some keels on and go for it. Leave the giant block tail, try it, and if you feel it needs a swallow give it a little surgery. Or take the middle road and give it a shallow swallow tail, not a super deep one. Does it have some sort of sidecut at the tail end, like the outline bends in? I can’t tell how thick it is, but the rails look rather thick so it’s probably got enough foam, unless it’s like 1.5" thick.
I feel like a lot of people on here haven’t been this light in many years.
Yeah my current board for groveling and such is 5’3" so I shouldn’t have a huge amount of trouble adjusting to a board so short. My only concern is how it gets into waves. I’ll post rail pics when I get home this aft
It’s my experience that board with a wide tail get in easily. If you read the boards that get in poorly thread, which also talks about boards that do get in well, other people agree. So I’d imagine that’ll be fine.