I've heard the term "tail lift" before ,but I'm not sure what it means. Did my fair share of searching and didn't come up with anything.
My idea is that "lift" ,angles out straight and rocker ,or "flip" curves out? Is this right?
Well you should know what tail rocker is…
But tail lift is the tail riding too high in the water(when things arent right), this can result from a single concave that is running through the middle of the board and through the tail. If the single concave is shallow(little lift), if its deeper or too deep then you can have a hard time on your board because the tail is riding high or not sinking. In the 90’s when shortboard widths went down to 19" and narrower, the width of the boards were not entirely suited to most surfers unless you ran a concave along the bottom of the board. The concave actually causes water to push up on the bottom and have the board ride with more glide and LIFT. Hence a narrower board can be brought up to spec with a different design element(concaves) to give it more lift.
I’ve heard “tail lift” used to describe back-half rocker for “hulls” and single fins a lot. One stage, two stage and three stage. Think of the rocker consisting of straight line segments with little bends between the segments. Segments are the same thing as the “stages”. Three stage tail lift is a rocker with three segments.
You subtle-ize it by smoothing out the transitions. The number of segments and where you start them is…er…if I told you I’d have to kill you. (Put a rocker stick on a Liddle and see if you can find them…I can’t!)
Thanks Lee.