Kneeboard Surfing USA Community Forum

There has been alot of discussion in this forum on flex, in both boards and fins, and the advantages of it.Spoons have been pretty well covered but there hasn't been much discussion on the type of flextail slab board that Peter Craword used to ride which I would have thought would be a good compromise for real world surfing conditions versus a spoon.
Why aren't any shapers refining this design or is the thruster set up a better all round design?
Any thoughts?

Herby -- Why don't you describe it for those of us who are clueless.

Bruce Hart has made some foam boards with a flex tail addition like this one. Bruce, where on the KSUSA is your pic of that type of board? I seem to remember seeing it a year or so ago, and it really caught my eye then.

..

Scott,

no, it belongs to 'scoop' unfortunately.
I have a rather ratty Crozier flexi

album_showpage.php?pic_id=3257

album_showpage.php?pic_id=3255

album_picm.php?pic_id=3254

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?

Once you've had black you'll never go back!!!! AB

How does Tony end up with all the good boards?

One thought from this quarter and then I'll shut up. The flex tail is a gutsy approach, but then why not guts it out all the way to the end? The spoon experience is about twisting and torquing through turns from about your knees back. That horseshoe rail acts like a wishbone or torsion bar. The way you sand the deck helps too. It all contributes to what Paul Gross describes in his vivid analogy as "a board twisting like an airplane propellor." It's not that the tail flexes straight up, like Marilyn Monroe's dress over that grate, to use another vivid analogy.

So it seems to me, as I get ready to be quiet, that the flex tail is a tease. Maybe you guys can hang in there while Bruce and others crank out a few cutting-edge spoons.

And why not various hull types with full flex incorporated. Could do Crawford Slab, Lis Fish, etc using same construction. Each seems a worthy project to me

...

I with ManO here. Flex accross board length may not be as functional as along rails (parallel to board length). One of the benefits of flex appears to be the enormous tail area that can be retained while still having some turning response (i.e. flexible rail plane shape).

Seems to me that increasing tail rocker under load (flex accross stringer) may not be as functional in this regard. Of course, it may have release characteristics that make up for it.

Yes I agree, full flex is the way to go but there are problems with this design to do with floatation, strength of the board etc.In the real world where waves are not often perfect and uncrowded the Crozier slab was probably a reasonable compromise, at the time.It provided floatation but still had attributes of the full flex spoon ie a long raking, flexible fin and some tail flex.

My original question related more to why the design had lapsed into disuse and hadn't been refined further, over time, and why riders weren't surfing this type of board given the professed desire for flex.What were the pros and cons of this design and could they be designed better now to overcome the problems?

A number of footboarders are using flextails so why not kneeboards?
See www.bushrat.com/page/flextails.html

The slab might have been the board to ride back then but in the US the fish blew the doors off the spoon here except maybe by GG in Gnar , Gnar conditions. I was there for both, saw Lis, and Huffman, in BIG surf and saw GG in action too. The fish (Lis fish ) was the highest performance vehicle hands down! ----just my opinion . Which is why most leaned to the fish back then. Just like now as many have leaned to the large tri- it paddles better and is more suited to current STYLES.