Surfdad and others..help with board selection!

[akdoc]

Hi all, I currently surf on a Hyperlite Coex and am looking for something faster that will spin better. I surf behind a 24ve so the wave is nice. I am 5'8" and 168lbs. I would say I am intermediate, I am really close to spinning a 3. There are so many manufacturers out there now I have no idea. I was looking at the IS Green Loogey, the Walzer Alpha in the med-large size and some of the walker project boards.

[Surfdad]

I got a chance to talk to the folks from Inland at the TX contest and they will be introducing a replacement board for the Green Loogey - they typically do a mid year introduction of product and if you can wait and like the Inland products, it might be worth your while.

TWP boards are sick, Props has some sweet custom shapes. I'm not much of a fan of the Walzer Alpha any longer. The TWP Comp X 4.5 is very similar but with more fin options.

Any of the boards with a twin fin setup will give you more drive. The deeper the fin, the more drive.

Just for fun, the next time you try and spin your three try something for me.

1) Slight forward motion towards the boat
2) Start your three such that the nose of the coex hits the peak of the spine
3) Drag you hand - not too hard, pretty liesurely
4) When you put your hand in the water, turn your head so that you are looking down and back at your rear foot's heel.

Tell me if that doesn't smooth out your 3 and if you get around easily - PUMP like crazy

[akdoc]

Thanks, I will try that out this weekend. I still haven't decided on a new board, probably just wait for the inland surfer release and see what they have.

Have a great 4th of July!

[samw]

Surfdad,
What is better a board with one center fin or two on the edge?

Thanks

[Surfdad]

Hey Samw,

Neither is better it's just a matter of personal preference. However, some background and rules of thumb so that folks can have some knowledge.

Typically single trailer fins are placed further back on the tail. This will widen the arc of a turn and tends to "lock" the tail down when you try and slide the tail out - all things being equal. That is to say if you have a 4 inch trailer fin it will track very straight and it will be hard to break the tail loose. Typically if you look at skim style boards with a single trailing fin those boards have a fairly shallow fin - less than 2 inches.

Twin fins typically have the fins closer to the rails examples of this configuration include most of the Inland Surfers and most of the TWP Comp X line. These fins are also pushed further forward of the tail, in comparison to the single trailer fins. The further forward the fins, the loose the tail will be. When you go to slide the tail out, the board will pivot around the fins. It's easy to see that moving the pivot point forward would give a feeling of looseness in the tail.

Now we come down to what is referred to as drive. Drive is that feeling that the board is moving forward. It's not quite acceleration, perse. Squirt is that sense of rapid acceleration, but drive is how fast the board will go in comparison to the speed of the wake itself.

Drive is greatly affected by fin area. The greater the fin area, the more drive that is experienced. Just by volume alone twin fins will offer more drive than a single fin...IF the fins in question are of relatively the same size. This can be a decided advantage say in situations where you try a surface three and don't quite make it - you're about to fade out the back, the twin fin will give you more drive to catch back up with the wake.

If you are more of a surf style rider - huge slayshes or you like carving and always riding the board with the tail in the back, then the twin fin is better suited for your style of riding than the single fin.

The single fin offers some decided advantages when your style is more skim oriented. The basis of many skim style tricks is the shuv. Briefly, the rider pulls his feet above the board and causes it to rotate 180 degrees beneath him. When he lands back down, the board is revert - meaning that the tail is now where the nose used to be. At this stage, the trailing fin is now at the nose, the shallower single fin is a decided advantage here. Rail mounted fins that were 4 inches deep would have a tendency to catch in the face of the wake and would also require that the board be ollied HIGHER in order to do the shuv - about 3 inches higher in order for the fins to clear on the rotation.

There are some other issues that need to be considered also. Two very important concepts are toe-in and cant. These refer to the way the fins are angled. Toe is just like the toe-in on the front wheels of your car - it's how angled in the leading edges of the fin are, in comparison to the trailing edge. Cant is the angle of the fins from the base towards the tip OUT from the center towards the rail.

These two concepts provide lift, drive, aid turning and squirt. If you look at most boards offered by large manufacturers - say a hyperlite or a cwb, the fins are straight up and down (no cant) and straight ahead (no toe), when combined with the relatively shallow fins these boards are typically slow as molasses running uphill in February and are unresponsive. These manufacturers do this because it's easier and cheaper than attempting to
build in toe and cant.

Probably more info than you wanted - but now you have some basis for assessing the quality of the ride of a board you are considering.

[akdoc]

Surfdad, that explanation helped me a ton...thanks!

[samw]

X2 Thanks a lot.

[loudelectronics]

wow.

[da.bell]

Leave it to surfdad...

No stone unturned on that posting... Very, very good one surfdad....

[akdoc]

Surfdad, thank you so much for the pointers on the 3. The second time I tried it this weekend I stayed in the pocket. It was sweet. Everyone in the boat was suprised!! Thanks again.

[KonaKing]

Wow Jeff I thought I was on Sways

Great info and you should post some pics of your red springer build.

[dogbert]

Probably more info than you wanted - but now you have some basis for assessing the quality of the ride of a board you are considering.

Quite the opposite. Now I know what to look for. Thanks!

[Surfdad]

Hey Kona - too funny. I can can see you looking at the URL - "no, it says Tigeowners" The red railed springer build has TOO much info on the "secret sauce" that we've got dialed in. I may post up after the season when we get the next iteration worked out, but for now, I think I'll let folks just guess. It's like most things the devil is in the details.

I have to give James his credit, he's incredibly talented and skilled. The tech in that board allows him to fully utilize his talents/skills regardless of the wake quality.

[KonaKing]

I just meant some like WW has, but it looks awesome

[Surfdad]

Yeah...I'm not posting up any more info on that construction on WW either. Lots of folks interested in the way it rides, I think that the TWC event legitimized the tech and so now lots of people want to know the recipe.