Sat
Sep 22
7:26pm
Decision time: surfboard design
My wife wants to buy me a new surfboard this November. Thankfully she’s given me the tip already so that I can take some time to choose a board that I’ll really enjoy.
My surfboard history is pretty typical. In 1992 I bought my first board - a 6′6″ thruster. It wasn’t one of those really thin ones (that was board #2), but it definitely wasn’t the board for a rank novice, although I didn’t know that at the time. Still, I had some fun on it trying to surf the beachies at Jan Juc, Anglesea, and Torquay.
In about 1995 I bought an even smaller board - a super-thin Rip Curl 6′2″ thruster. I was 23 and it was all about the look, but because the board was only about 18″ wide and 1 3/4″ thick I could hardly paddle it and certainly couldn’t catch waves on it. What a tosser.
When I sold that board I pretty much gave surfing away for a few years, until in 2002 my friend John bought a Trigger Brothers Stubby (aka hybrid) and couldn’t stop talking about how much fun he was having. My lovely wifey bought me one soon after, and the fun factor was back. Mine’s 7′0″ long, 22″ wide and 3″ thick with plenty of volume in the tail, which makes it dead easy to catch waves on and in turn lets you concentrate on improving your surfing rather than fighting to time the wave properly. Suddenly surfing was fun again.
Anyway. Today I’m no world-beater, but I’m starting to look for more speed down the line of the wave and more manoueverability for turns, so it’s time for a new board. I’ve had some good chats with Ross the owner of Rasta in Barwon Heads and exchanged emails with Murray Bourton of Bourton Shapes, and I’ve narrowed it down to these designs:
The Fish (Rasta)
The Flying Turk (Rasta)
The Big Bat (Bourton)
The Standard Quad (Bourton)
Ross reckons a 6′8″ Turk will be the most natural progression from my current board - it’s a similar shape but all dimensions are slightly smaller, which means less bulk for me to turn.
Murray says the Big Bat series has proven to be most successful for those in foam reduction mode. He suggested a 6′8″ Big Bat for my weight. He also offered up his High Performance Retro, which is a similar shape but according to him “doesn’t have the zing and grip of the BB”.
The Fish is in there as even though it’s a bit more radical (how 80s is that word?!), everything I read about them says “fast, solid and fun”, and you can’t go past that if you (like me) are looking for a high wave count in 2′ to 5′ surf.
The standard Quad’s there because even though it’ll be a significant change from my current board, when I’m used to it it’s likely to take me further than the other three in terms of my surfing ability. It’s more of a high performance board than the others.
At the moment I’m leaning towards the Fish At the moment I’m leaning towards the Flying Turk or the Big Bat, but I’ll have a few more chats to the experts in other board stores to make sure. Either way I’m looking forward to plenty of great waves this spring and summer.