April Notes

We had some fun swell come in last week on Thursday and Friday. It was a little "high-tidy" as my buddy Larry liked to call it. On Thursday morning, I did some calling around to surfers sound asleep in their cozy little beds. I'm pretty dangerous now that my wife got me a cell phone. She said that I had to get it becuase it was "free". Of course, I protested. Freedom, I argued, is not the state in which your wife can call you every second of every day - car, work, beach. But, she won. I lost. After so many years of holding out on the cell phone craze, I have caved. But, now I have the ability to call people at 5:00 a.m. (Hey, these are still night time minutes!) and wake them up to go surfing.

Last Thursday, I met Shaun and Larry, as well as Brett. Friday, Steve and Brett were there. Pretty good turnouts. Saturday morning, I got the cell phone number of another surfer, Chase, who I only know from the beach. He comes down on Wednesdays, so now I can call him up at 5:00 a.m.

The whole thing is quite sick. Imagine, you are laying in your bed, dreaming of purple butterflies, and some insane maniac from inland calls you, shouting "Surf's Up, Buddy!".

And, it's not like I need a swell to do it, either. I could just as well be calling when there isn't a wave in sight.

Steve, the guy who met Brett and I on Friday, is fun to surf with. We had some decent shoulder high set waves that morning, so there was lots of fun to be had. Steve and I have been talking about hooking up for dawn patrol for a few weeks now, but had only surfed together once. Prior to that, I had told Steve to meet me one morning at the cliffs, and he called me later, to tell me I was crazy. "Man" he said. "It was frickin' cold and there were NO WAVES! I don't know what you guys were doing out there." It was true. Brett and I were the only surfers out who weren't forced to be there by their surf team coach. Even those kids were begging their teacher to let them stay out. But, she never gives in. The water temperature had dropped to an ice-cream headache giving 51 degrees, and there was no surf at all. Brett and I saw one kid hiding behind a rock.

So, when Steve met Brett, he said "Oh, that's that other guy who was with you when there was no waves."

"Yup. That's him."

Steve is in his early forties. He's a very active guy, who has the Tom Selleck look going pretty well. He's got the short curly hair, wears a thick brown mustache, and clearly stays in good shape. Give him a pair of short cut lycra shorts, and you've got Magnum. Steve has a hearty laught and a good smile. I met him in early January thtough some friends of my brother. He lives in San Pedro, and usually surfs up north, but old me he wanted to start heading down to HB when as the summer kicked in. "As long as you don't mind a longboarder hanging around." He'd said. "I pretty much ride a 10'0" on everything from ancle biters to double overhead."

With all that board, Steve doesn't miss too many waves. "You know" he told me in the water, "my nickname is the one man crowd."

I had the 7'6" out that morning, but I got plenty, including a nice left that I shouldn't have made, but for one hell of a snappy quick bottom turn to get me back out in front of the thing. I keep explaining to Brett that my funboard really does "surf like a shortboard". I think I was able to prove it there. He was right in front of me at the time.

On Saturday, I pullled the middle fin out of the funboard. I'm going to ride it as a squirly twin for a while.
I'm glad that there was a little swell last week.

I definatly used the morning surfing sessions as my happy escape. I've been extraordinarily busy at the office, working weekends for th last two weeks. And then, I went to a funeral on Wednesday for a frind of mine - died in his apartment and wasn't found for a couple days. Pretty sad. His family is really shook up, as was I. But, I don't mourn really well. I don't cry and get it out. I stuff it, turn into an asshole, and stop sleeping, and get depressed. I did all of that last week. But, at the end, I had some friends to share some very beautiful mornings in the water.

On Friday, we saw a dolphin, liesurly strolling down to the pier with two babies.

Sometimes the little things count a lot.

Question from the Audiance

Kevin wrote:

hey dood,
i have a foot pad that's coming off? do you know what kind of glue i need to use to make it stay on? also, do you have an article or reference about fins? what's the difference between small and big fins?
i have 2 small fins and a bigger on in the middle, is that bad? my friend said i should have a smaller on in the middle....

--
Kevin

--------------------------------------------
Travis Wrote:

Kev,

A good general resource on all technical things surfboard related is here. If you do a search for "re-sticking a tailpad" you'll find the thread you are looking for.

On fins, I'll give you my opinion first, and then some links.

My understanding of the true "thruster" concept is that it consists of three equal sized fins. Think of your bottom turn. When you are leaning back, one fin comes up out of the water a little bit and becomes kind of useless. But, at that point, you've still got two fins working for you. You get to the top and turn the other way, and the other side fin is working for you with the center. So, the center fin is a "common" in two sets of twin fins.

Now, in reality, the third fin doesn't become useless, and can add power to your turns. But, the basic concept (at least the way that I understand it) is based on three equal sized fins. That's how all my short boards are, and I've never experimented with other arrangements. (Before my current shortboard, I'd always had glassed in fins)

However, I do use a longer middle fin on my funboard. It's not much bigger, only by about 1/4". But the long middle fin concept is about riding in a straight line, like a longboard. So, the board gets a little tighter. You just have to press a bit more to get a turn. On my finboard, you'd never really know. That thing is loose as hell anyway for as big as it is (my theory is that it's beacuse of the pintail). I've never had any problems turning it.

At the recommendation of a buddy, I have pulled the middle fin of my funboard out, and that is really fun. Though the traditional twin fin boards do not have angled fin placements, a thruster board can be ridden without the center fin. To have a good day with it, I need at least chest high waves, but no bigger than head high. Riding twin fin takes a lot of power out of the top turn. The bottom turn feels looser, but the top turn feels WAY looser - almost like the tailslides we used to do on skateboards. A couple of guys I know have fallen in love with twin finning, but want a little more stability, so they put in a middle fin and cut it down to just about 1" - 1-1/2" long, like a little rudder fin in between the two.

To read more on fins: I'd start here. I know, it's a corny little article, but a good intro. Then read some history lessons. Here, you read about a knee boarder who designed fins based on the dorsal fin of the blue tuna and gave us the fin shape that we know today with the rake. Not to mention the oddball tube photography from a surf mat that made big wednesday fun to watch. But, then you have to read about this guy, who was just too big for the twin generation, and needed something with more thrust. OK, now check this out. There is a board design section of this website that has some really good basic info on many things, fins included. Of course, for the actual fins themselves, one must respect the pros at FCS. Their catalogue has a little bit of design info but not much.

Happy trails. I heard you guys had some good south out there.