Smackdown: WAVE Fin Box vs. Deep V's

The WAVE Set fin box had been established as the go-to fin system for a year or so when the first salvo of the transition era hit the shores of the US. 

The problem?  The WAVE box was wide and square...and it was hollow, so it couldn't be ground down flush to the bottom of the board. That wasn't an issue on gently rolled longboard tails, but on Deep V's it certainly was.

Here's a shot of McTavish shaping a V Bottom at the MP shop. He addressed the problem by routing the box into the raw blank, and worked around it during the shaping process. You can see how stoked he was!

And here's a similar approach by Jacobs. They left the spine of the V flat so the box would drop in cleanly...

Flip Flop Friday

 

 

 

 

Yeah, that's right...it's KP as a regular foot!

When Men Were Men....

...and builders knew where to place hull fins.

The (Almost) Lost Art Of The Volan Cut Lap

 

George Greenough's Victorian Spoon

 

One Australian fall morning in the late 60's, George landed in Sydney with the expectation that Ted Spencer would pick him up, and they would head north to the Lennox/Byron area.

But nooooooooo .....

At the terminal, Ted informed him that they were, in fact, driving south to the chilly waters of Bells.

Long story short...the deep hulled, highly strung Velo model George was currently riding didn't work in the full faced Victorian waves. It needed a lot of curling power to fire. After a few frustrating days in the water, he began construction on a narrower, flatter spoon, with a pulled-in nose.

That board became his go-to junk wave spoon for about a year. It was a less-radical predecessor to the edge boards that would come along later.

There are shots of George riding his classic, deep hulled Velo model at Bells on a small day in Evolution, and you can see him struggling. There are also shots of the ''P-40 Velo'' model in Innermost Limits at a Queensland beach break, and it goes pretty good...

 
The P-40 board (and its logo) became iconic when it appeared in a WAVE Corporation ad the following year...

Dropped Rail, Tucked Under Edge, Rolled Bottom: Followup

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The arrow points to the tucked under edge...

This is a square tailed egg I shaped in the early 90's under the "Our Blue Planet' label. It had the same rail and bottom setup as the more recent Ryan Conder board posted a few days ago.

The OBP egg has recently fallen into the hands of Paul Castenda, and he banged off some shots so we could share it with you.

Stringerless Sunday

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another Stringerless Tracker from Australia, 1968.

Trackers aren't any more or less well-suited to being stringerless...there were a lot of them because the Tracker was the hot shape during the heart of the stringerless era.

This 'Scott Dillon' was shaped by Brian Ingham. (Gobs of hull!) Scott did the glass work.

7'6'' x 22" x 2.75"

Dropped Rail, Tucked Under Edge, Rolled Bottom

 

 

The first time I ever heard of a full length down rail combined with a rolled bottom was around 1970. Mike Cundith was using this arrangement on his early twin fins. He swore by it, saying it was "the best of both."

In 1972, I watched Donald Takayama shape a board for my college roommate, and he was using the same bottom/rail idea. 

Over the years Greg Liddle has also shaped a number of boards -- mostly thrusters -- with the same design premise. 

The board pictured above was made for Ryan Conder in 2013. Ryan can ride anything, so any endorsement he makes has to be qualified...that said, he likes it! 

You can see from the cut file images how the bottom is designed. The board I'd like to try this idea on is a classic Lis Fish. Might be a real sleeper...

Flip Flop Friday