Its that old problem, too much rocker and you stop not enough and the board is hard to turn or catches. When I first started to ride Kneeboards in the early eighties, boards were very flat and had a lot of glide. Then came the floater and vertical moves and the rocker was increased producing the pocket rocket that could not cope with flat sections. Many of us went back to having less rocker.
I have recently taken possession of one of Albert Munoz old board. It is a 5'5'' with a very flat rocker - much less than I would ride. So what is everyone else choosing out there for their general boards? In addition, what is the best way to communicate nose lift and tail lift to your shaper?
I know what you mean about rocker. My everyday parkes has a low to moderate rocker I would say. it works great but the beach break waves I ride make it a bit sticky when coming down off the top on waves above the six foot mark. Much more slight rail shifts seem to work better for me. My Blast aussie tri has way more rocker and seems to handle vertical movement up and down the wave face more easily. I feel more confident when I am coming back down the face and into the trough that it won't stick or pearl. The board really slows down in the flat shots. it needs a nice juicy pocket. The rocker line seems to be pretty important in the board design. My current thought is that for summer mush and small waves low rocker is the best bet (gives more glide) but once waves get good, larger amounts of rocker work better and allow more vertical moves in and around the critical section of the wave. I hope bud will way in on this because I want to consider rocker more intently on my next few boards
I like to look at the rocker first and then the outline or template curve and finally the length. All three of these should relate to one another and not be singled out as the sole cause of one dynamic or function. Shape a board with the same rocker and change one of the others and you'll see what I mean. My last boards had a set formula for this and my tweeking was more on rail design. Jon
