Peter Crawford Flextail

[Flexman]

.

[Bruce Blake]

I once saw (1979) gg at the wedge whale beach sydney about ten foot, north swell. those who dont know the break its a left similar to the newport wedge in that a reflex wave bounces off the cliff and as you are taking off on a nice ten footer the rebounding wave can double the size of your wave as you takeoff; making it fairly exciting, into a sand bottom filthy barrel with a long throwing thin lip. gg riding a spoon was dropped in on by a hot local pedestrian on a 7'10 lopez gun,( john steen )...typical, no respect.
gg unfazed took a longer bottom turn line past the intruder travelling longer at speed through the bottom turn equalled the pedestrian as he turned towards the lip to line up for the tube, overtook the guy and performed a tight turn in front of john, back into the wave ie going right on the left past the standup who couldnt handle riding over georges wake and fell off.
gg in effect has drawn a 360 degree turn around the guy turning tighter as he went like a nautilus shells shape of tighter radius, almost stopped completely, pumped a bit as he rose in the face and slotted so easily into the barrel it was almost criminal.
I was paddling out at the time and when gg got back to the lineup i asked
if I could see his board. about 5'2, if that, velo nose ultra thin, only foam at the front third rails with clear glass everywhere else, a semi-sinker.
about 20" of just clear flextail maybe 8" wide at the rounded square tail.

What I got from his words was that the boards flex allowed the holding of the speed through the tightening turn, flexed back as he stopped and flexed again as he pumped (rail to rail like a skateboarder on the flat)
as he reached the critical, powerful upper section of the wave dropping and accelerating towards another bottom turn of less depth inside the tube rising to the top of the wave as he exited the barrel, top turning again, one smooth line to a bottom turn and off the back.
what I noticed was that the board was obviously on the plane but very low tracking well in the water surface not so much above the water as in a self made trough.
gg said the continuity of the curve he was following was the most important ie not pausing between moves just drawing a confident line and "keeping the thing moving all the time" he was more worried about this than the flexability of the board, though that obviously helped.
his advice to me was to make a board with a similar bottom and a solid 2" of foam for floating my bulk except for the last 15" or so a la PC or chris crozier flextails.
unless the rider is a lightweight like gg the spoon will be hard to make work, also he avoided late vertical drops for fear of going through the board preferring to commit early and low in the wave at takeoff while on the spoon
a spooned deck on an otherwise normal slab flextail will achieve a very workable compromise for most normal riders in average/good waves without the stalling potential that a spoon without flotation will give.
board outline/ length really depends on your regular wave I reckon

hope this has helped...

[Man O' War]

Bruce -- Great story. So John didn't do that again?

[Bruce Blake]

gg did a lot of good for all us kneelos that day
his speeeeeeed was amazing which was half the effect on john
a very competent big wave surfer with proportional ego completely jaw-droppingly stuffed
pretty to watch...

[floyd699]

Brings back memories, i used to have a crozier flex tail in the 70's loved that board 5'6 x 23 1/2 i think it was, used to get so much speed off the bottom turn, launch it off the lip, air and plenty of it, not good for the knees [ didn't have deck pads then ] been thinking of making another one these last few weeks but in a quad, diamond sqare tail, 5'7 - 5'9 x23 1/4 or therabouts, styrene, stringerless and carbon/kevlar lam job, with at least a 3-4" flex tail.The more i think about it the more it makes sense. Whadaya reckon, who else wants one?

Hey AB - how'd it go - u make one of these sweet rides? Am toying with going flextail or fish,
any pics or news of how she performs?

[HERBYJ]

Sounds like a great idea.
Who would you get to shape/glass it?

[analbirth]

hey floyd, yeah it turned out better than i imagined. Pic's on my website

http://nativekneeboards.com/nativekneeb ... XTAIL.html

the things a weapon, from 3-8' also an added bonus, the tail acts like a horizontal fin and stabilises the board when your on the foam ball, rock solid
no squirming at all.