Firstly ....we have to thank the Aussies for sooooo much
Nearly all of our influences here have come from Australia
We looked at the surfers first....& we liked what we saw!
Powerful top to bottom momentum surfing....& to do this requires [in most cases] that leaning forward stance....to fully engage the rail & drive
through the turn.
To surf like this requires a certain type of board.
These boards are just about all 3 fin designs & ridden from slightly further back.
We were heavily influenced by Bruce's designs ....we looked at Simon surfing them....& that's the way we wanted to go.
I had seen the difference in Bro's surfing after spending some time with Simon....& he was getting so much more power down.
If you surf with un upright stance its hard to engage the forward rail through a turn....& instead of surfing with momentum through radical moves there tends to be more of a recovery period.
I don't think people realise what a small crew we have here that compete....less than the average club contest in Oz.....we have between 12 & 15 surfers competing at best.....in the whole of the UK
This puts the team that went to Santa Cruz in perspective....& their success is entirely down to watching the Aussies & their boards.
I guess we have been quite clinical about it!
Jodie of course was surfing a Flashpoint!
We have made great efforts to tune our boards to the riders.....Karl's board has only roll to spiral v in the bottom....in fact none of his boards have concave......it also has a double flyer.
He likes his boards narrow, which inevitably makes a straighter outline.....so to keep the board loose we put a lot of tail lift in it.
To answer Dorje...if you put the board on rail & push it through the water it will naturally want to turn [the rudder effect]....it also allows the nose of the board to lift without having to push the tail down into the water.....& allows for easy release of water off the tail. These designs give Karl the ability to do that super tight top turn...with power.
Karl keeps telling me his board is perfect...so he can't find any drawbacks
.....perhaps in time he will ask for some changes
Most of our boards have less foam in the nose than Flashpoints .....something that the guys here all seem to like .....& Bryn's board is quite extreme at 5' 11" x 24" x 2 3/8" ......made as a small wave board that will skim easily but engage a rail to carve in the weak conditions.....tell us more Bryn
We are having a lot of success with the 5' 8" five fin fish....it really does seem like the missing link.....does momentum surfing, turns tight & bites & drives off the bottom....this is what I'm having fun with at the moment.
The inevitable question is....will the American kneelos want to go more the Aussie way??????....[thinking towards NZ in 2009]
There seems to have been a dominance of both Aussie style & design at the contest.....who will your young guys follow?
Ahhhhhhh.....smell that opened can of worms
