As most of you probably already know, getting your fins right can mean the difference between your board going insane or not working for you at all.
And with such a wide selection of twin keel fins available these days, there's fantastic opportunity to get your twin keel fish dialled. Also, because my boards are very finely tuned, they will be very responsive to different style fins.
Sometimes it can be a little frustrating to find just the right fin. But when you do and your board is purring like a well tuned Italian sportscar, the effort is well worth it.
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We’re serious about what we do. And what we do is build the best possible surfboards we can.
At the same time, we are constantly striving to make better boards, hence Rhino...
Rhino Laminating in Brookvale is one of Australia’s best surfboard laminators and builders dedicated to the art of creating beautifully crafted surfboards.
Specialising in resin tints, pin striping and mirror finish polish jobs, the Rhino factory uses the highest quality materials to achieve some the finest surfboard production in Australia.
And we are really excited to team up with their crew of some of the finest craf...
The latest Hit the Roads are something else..
The introduction of the FLV into the bottom contour about 18 months ago has proved to be a massive breakthrough. Not only does the FLV allow the boards to sit over on their rail so much easier than previous concave configurations, they are also much faster than a concave or a vee.
I've been hitting speeds on the latest version 7'3 that I've never hit before. And doing so, without even trying. I recall one surf on it late last year in pretty sizey, double to triple overhead waves. The board was high speed swooping and gliding...
Like I've said before, getting it right is the never ending challenge of building surfboards. With so many factors, and the complexity of them interacting with each other, all having an effect on the final design of the board, it's an extremely complicated process that can take years to get right sometimes.
Sometimes, I get really lucky and the very first build of a new idea is killer. My 7'0" FLV Hit the Road is a great example of that. Built in April last year, it was the first 7'0" to get the FLV bottom contour and from the very first wave, the board felt fantastic, swooping and gliding...
As most of you probably already know, getting your fins right can mean the difference between your board going insane or not working for you at all.
And with such a wide selection of twin keel fins available these days, there's fantastic opportunity to get your twin keel fish dialled. Also, because my boards are very finely tuned, they will be very responsive to different style fins.
Sometimes it can be a little frustrating to find just the right fin. But when you do and your board is purring like a well tuned Italian sportscar, the effort is well worth it.
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A Direct Comparison! The Magic Carpet Or the MKV?
Full disclosure - I love both boards equally and do swap them out constantly, they are very similar when it comes to glide, speed and stability. However when it comes to response there's some slight differences.
The Magic Carpet has the smoother response of the FLV that allows the board to sit up on its rail more and glide marginally better on open faces. The MKV still goes like a bat out of hell with fantastic glide but has a bit more of an immediate response from it’s single concave.
The more immediate response of MKV’s concave also makes...
There is no doubt that our twin keel fishes are performance boards that can be pushed as hard as you want. But at the same time they are also very easy to ride. Probably why we all like surfing them so much. No matter how you surf them, whether you're just cruising or pushing critical turns, these boards really do make it all easier.
But they weren't always like this...
When I first started riding the twin keel fishes, they were easy to surf. All that width and the low rocker made them very stable under the feet. Until the waves got going....
And then I discover...
As primarily a custom surfboard designer and a shaper, the most important thing to me when I build someone's board is getting it right. When someone orders a board from me, I always feel that great responsibility has been given to me, and so I take it very seriously to make sure that I get their board right for them.
Because as a surfer, I know exactly what it feels like when my board is not performing as good as I expect it to. Not only do I not enjoy my surf as much as I'd like to, it also means that I'm not surfing as well as I could be, because my board is limiting me....
Indo Quivers
It's that time of year... Indo season! And it's kicked in with a bang this year. We're currently getting back to back swells right now, which has been great for putting the latest versions of the Indo Rocket and Hit the Road designs through their paces.
I get a lot of crew asking me for recommendations for their Indo Quiver, so here's my take on a 3 board Indo quiver...
Board #1 - Would be a Magic Carpet for anything from knee high up to double over head, or if you're not fully up to speed with the twin keels, and still riding thrusters a lot, then the concave bottom MKV tw...
This one took a long time! Finally..
Creating a Full Length Vee version of the Indo Rocket has been quite a task. While the FLV dropped into the Hit Roads, Magic Carpet and Single Fins Series beautifully, the Indo Rocket has taken a massive amount of work to get right.
For over a year now, I have been testing different rocker configurations of the Indo Rockets! Trying to get the beautiful balance of drive and ease of turning that the previous single into double concave versions featured. It made me realise just how lucky I got with the other boards.
What made it such a challenge was that the...