Experts on fin foil and surfboard volume!
Lately, and much like the principals of this website, I’ve hit a fiscal wall. Gotta throw cash to make it, but while you’re waiting for the return salvo, times can get tough. As a way of feeding my more wolfish creditors I’ve begun liquidating my surfboard collection.
Nine Losts, a HS, a Genfour and a Slater Designs.
What moved the fastest? The Slater Designs flew off the online auction house within hours. I even flipped a noseless Lost V3 my kid brother had found on the curb for $80. One man came by for a Lost Short-Round that had been ridden twice. Three hundred bucks. A deal offered by a drowning man. One ding on the rail, a couple of heel dents. The man arrives and cusses me out for trying to rip him off and wasting his time.
I feel for the poor schlubs in surf stores who deal with this sorta bullshit all day. Volume has to be my most hated word this week. I had one guy write, “So I normally ride a 32L but this board is 31.4. I’m thinking this this board might be under-volumed for me.”
Rocker, contour, wide-point, rail profile, measurements within one-sixteenth of an inch… every single detail is forensically examined by these maybe-buyers.
Has the proliferation of design information on the internet created a hobby within a hobby?
Fins are now open season. A couple of buyers were analysing the profile, foil, material, and suitability to the board model of a set of fins that were being chucked in with the sale. These self-professed “low-level intermediates” were very serious about the workings of their rudders.
“Plastics are no good,” wrote one. “Are the TP1’s anything like the HS Ando fin or F8 Blackstix? From what I have researched today, I think it’s important to put a fin in the board that has least some of the desired qualities of what is recommend for that model to get the best out of it. I’m close to pulling the pin on this…”
The quest to differentiate boards via technicalities and buzz words has led to an army of beginner and intermediate surfers who blame these buzz words and other finer details on their lack of ability to bust a full-rotor or jam the fins.
I don’t have a problem with it per se. As long as the board sells.
But, I ask, and in all seriousness, what sort of wonderful experiences have you had with garage sale buyers?
Maybe you work in a store? What’s the wildest thing you’ve been told? And does the below-average surfer tend to exaggerate his ability?
This is an interesting topic. I have some friends who are “gear guy.” They have the latest fins made from carbon something or other, and the newest wetsuit in the coolest color, with the latest Slater board made from Helium or Oxygen or some other marketing ploy. Gear Guy also has the newest golf clubs, the most expensive golf balls, all that stuff and he still slices his drive 90 degrees off-target. Anyway, I enjoyed this article.
I will never again buy a poly board and all I want is a surftech tuflite board that I know is light and floaty and can withstand the abuse I put it thru and never get dinged. Does that board design requirement put me in the dreaded category of kook?
The under armpit test is my absolute favorite and of similar value to the tyre kick when buying a car.
I cheated on my shaper and bought a mass-produced board. On the way out of the shop, a guy said it looked good in my arms. I was both confused and hated him.
I have no idea the exact dims on my fish beyond length. But it’s hella fun, so that’s pretty great.
A bad workman blames his tools, but a true Kook goes on for hours about the limitations his board is placing on his surfing! Of course the limiting factor in his case isn’t the board, but the fact he is a kook who can’t get to his feet without crawling to his knees first! Spend more time in the water Kook!
Kooks = Authority! For the time being?
Don’t worry, these are the same people who will take up SUPing when the learning curve is too steep.
Meanwhile the bodyboarder next to you in the lineup rides the same board in waves from 1ft mush to 20ft slabs
But he’s slowly wearing his dick off…
Dragging does kill https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
What did they do to poor Wilko?
Looking at the other side of the coin; can you blame people for not wanting to sucker up and pay so much for a fucking surfboard? It’s really not these ignorant kooks fault that you paid several hundred dollars for something that you now, because of financial duress, need to liquidate at a slightly reduced price. Besides, the beauty of private sale is that the bullshit can fly both ways. Half the fun is being able to freely tell low ball kooks to fucking beat it.
I think if you get a 600 dollar js or merrick or lost, ride it a few times, then ask 500 bucks for it, go fuck yourself. It is worth 300 or 350. Bluebook your 40 thousand dollar Tacoma after you put 10 thousand miles on it. Same thing cunts, no one gets it!!
Depreciation is a bitch ain’t it?
An accountant’s wet dream.
Exactly.
I have a customer who has changed his boards thickness by a 1/16th of an inch twice now and swore that it was imperative for peak performance. Kooks don’t seem to understand that the cutting machine that cuts your board is very fucking far from a precise instrument. Then it goes to the shaper who depending on the day he has had may accidentally take a bit too much out or leave a bit too much in. And handshapes? its anyones guess! Then it gets glassed and that poor resin addled sod is likely to do anything to the thing. Then another underpaid dusty itchy excuse for a human attacks the thing with a sander – you see where I’m going with this? Go grab a tape measure and check your board – I’ll wait.
You forgot to mention the shaper will scribble whatever dimensions you tell him on the bottom. Full creative writing there, because they rarely represent what the board actually is.
And forge Al Merrick’s signature perfectly,
Mal Eric
And Darren Handleys and JS’s and Pyzels and Haydens and and and and…..oh except firewires, they’re shaped by a guy in Thailand that’s chained to a stool.
This is why it’s better to strip down to a loin cloth, light your old boards on fire, and dance around them in the moonlight chanting to the god of perfect swells.
Was selling a 6’3″ JR fish. Originally had $100 on it but was now down to $50. This bloke comes down from Noosa, tells me he lives at Sunshine Beach*, but has only ridden mals at Noosa. Looks the board over, it’s used but acknowledges it is in good nick, all dings fixed professionally, minor bruising on deck, waterproof, light, sweet as.
“Yeah, I like it but I’ve been told I should be looking at a 2.5″ thick board.”
“Mate, this is 2 3/8″ thick.”
“Yeah, I think it’s too thin to float me.”
“It’s a quarter of an inch thinner, but it’s 3″ longer, so it would have the same volume as a 6’0″, 2.5″ board.”
“Nah, it has to be 2.5″ thick.”
“Mate, it’s $50. What have you got to lose?
*The most consistent beach break around these parts. Would have waves about 20x more often than Noosa would. With 1/10th the crowds.
I’ll buy it for fifty bucks and I’m a fat fuck
The youngest kid now has it as his preferred weapon.
It’s 1/8 of an inch thinner. Which makes this story even funnier!
I tried to explain that the lost 1/8″ was caught up in the extra 3″ length. And that the extra length would suit his mal experience. Dickhead says no.
I <3 Sunshine. Only surfed it a few times, but absolutely love that stretch of beachies. If I lived up that way, I’d take the empty beach breaks every day of the week over the crowds on the points.
Could have been a 50 something IT specialist from Ipswich…
Ha! Nope, this bloke was an avocado munching, chia seed nibbling, soy double macchiato sipping, 72kg mal rider from Noosa alright.
I was selling a beautifuly made Dave Macaulay 6”10 gun and a dude asked me to send a photo of a ruler over the tail so he how deep the concave was. Fuck me if your surfing a wave big enough for a 6”10 you will be going fast no matter what the concave is.
Gumtree? Don’t start me on the people you meet through Gumtree.
You guessed it. So many fucking weirdos !!
A few years ago I regrettably sold an iMac on PunishTree because I’d pissed FAR too much money against a wall and a trip to Indonesia was looming. This bloke came around, eyeballed the rig, as happy with it as his mothers finest curry and the deal was done. Starts ringing me around about 1am in the morning completely flipping his shit out about the fact that the receipt from JB hifi says a 2013 machine, but it was 2011. Get more messages (he’s stopped calling now) the next day about how he’s going to go me for fraud. “Whatever, fuck-off” I think. They made things in 2011 and sold them until 2014. I’m sure this computer caused someone to try one of the suicide nets at foxconn.
Many days later, I’m pulled into the HR department at work and the HR chick asks me, “you wouldn’t know a Rasheed (protecting his nombre here), per chance?” I go ghostmode on most* social media, for fear of this exact reason. I’m guessing he’s gone through my letterbox to find out where I work. The HR chick says that he’s basically called and earbashed her every day for two weeks about me being a shitty employee, ripping people off and that I’ll be going to jail for fraud.
I call him again, but to no avail to smooth it out. You can technically get away with anything if you offer some sort of monetary compensation. I offered a $50 refund, but catch was he had to meet me at the front of the police station to get it. I’d groomed the coppers earlier about someone stalking me and he walked straight into a baited trap for $50.
That was fun.
I worked in snowboard rental for a season and asked this chick getting rental boots “how much skiing have you done?” she answered as if I should know; “tbh, I can’t remember a time when I haven’t been skiing.” – of course we saw her for the next week flailing around hopelessly trying to ski and she still had the cheek to ask us if she could come with us because her first-timer friends were too amateur and where holding her back!
Selling boards or actually anything on Craigslist sucks. Nothing irks me more than “What’s your bottom dollar?” or an offer that is about 60% of asking.
“What’s your bottom dollar?”
Hahaha…..should irk you! I don’t think they’re asking about the surfboard.
There’s no negotiating on those encounters, either.
When they say to me, ‘what will you take for it?’, I reply with ‘10 grand, but it’s only for sale for 100 bung’. Confuses the fuck out of them every time.
This is why I now sell boards I don’t want by placing them in the alley and letting them go to poor and in return I get to know they are dealing with the hagglers.
I put some old, yellow, dinged-into-oblivion longboard in my alley that a friend was gracious enough to give to me before he moved inland. The board absorbed water like a tampon. Heavy as. The next morning it was replaced by a Team Costco board. The new owner probably regrets his decision, or is too dumb to realize his mistake.
The wildest stuff I’ve heard has been told to me not by poor old kooks trying to solve the riddle of the V4 Blakstik, but by surfboard store sales staff.
There’s just no excuse for some of the shit they try to impart upon ya. One told me not all that long ago that I shouldn’t be interested in a round pintail because they don’t have enough drive for the surf round here. Also how important it was to look for a “hip” in a shortboard. I studied him curiously. He clearly hadn’t recognised me, but had he even sized me up at all? Did he speak this way to every quiet, sunburned 50-ish surfer who entered his store?
To be fair I go to other stores where the sales staff have a lot of expertise and really help their customers, but…
No wonder people order boards off the Internet.
Why would he recognize you?
Cause he’s Nick Fucking Carroll! Any experienced surfer would reca-notice him
Ya know, now that I think about it, I think Dane had some rando thing about surfboard “hips” — I have a vague memory of watching his mouth move around words like that anyway. I didn’t understand it all but maybe I’m dumb.
You can’t possibly be dumb Jen. You found your way here.
Hi Jen! The hip is a part of the outline curve just up from the leading fin set. It’s where the outline begins to bend in toward the “pod” or actual final tail shape. In the classic original Thruster design, the hip was in fact an indent in the outline curve, or what used to be known as a “flyer” — you could clearly identify the bump in the curve, whereas with most modern squash tail type Thrusters, it’s semi-hidden within the overall curve. The hip typically allows curve to appear where most surfers need it, ie where they’ll use the outline curve to start their bottom turns and top turns and cutbacks. You don’t see a lot of hip in a pro level board (ie JJF’s Ghost thingy) because a pro uses the rocker curve to turn, not the outline. If there’s a hip they tend to use it to spin the board out and slide it sideways through a turn. I know this all sounds complex; I guess water flow is pretty complex. But it’s the core fundamental of surfing. Feel the water move across the board’s surfaces, use the feelings to make stuff happen.
A world class piece of mansplaining! I trust you are now fully informed Jen. Sheesh.
Ha ha, well, since I sometimes I just wave my arms around when I talk to my shaper and tell him to make something rad, I didn’t mind. 🙂
Oh! I actually didn’t know that, although I do know exactly what curve you mean. I’m uh not sure I would pick a board based on that! I mean, it matters, but so does a lot of other stuff.
My favorite part of shortboards is the way it seems like you can feel the water through them. I don’t understand how that is so, but it is. It’s lovely.
It is. I didn’t think I was mansplaining then Jen, my apologies, I sensed a question in your reply.
Naahhhh, you’re good. I am interested in this kind of nerdery. Carry on 🙂
Please spill your guts on board design.
Hard toss up between who’s worse: the unwitting civilian kook or the over-zealous sales kook.. one so assuredly confident in their semi-understanding of the heavily marketed buzzwords regarding surfboard nuance; the other so feverishly desperate to sell some high-dollar shit that they’re almost shaking as they regurgitate a sales rep’s sweet nothings about the aforementioned, heavily marketed surfboard buzzwords.
You know what I reckon is worst, the old guy who was never much good but is now claiming Old Guy status, yelling on social media etc about over-zealous kooks, professional surfers, CAD machine cutting, fin systems, and pretty much anything else that didn’t exist when he started pseudo-surfing. Fuck those guys are embarrassing.
I’ve never mentioned CAD machine cutting or fins!!!
Very familiar with this species. Same guys trying to sell piss-yellow elf shoes (90’s rocker) for $300 bucks because it wasn’t shaped by “some bullshit machine”
I wanna print some t-shirts that instead if the “Old Guys Rule” have “Old Guys Live in The Past” emblazoned across the back.
I’m 36 and am starting to realise how many lower ability/awareness old surfers hide behind the “everything was better back when story”
oh it’s insane. I never thought surfing would be full of the same sort of old people who drove me away from everything and into the surf in the first place.
Old guys Drule
And the worst thing is; they’re the pricks who drop in me the most.
There is a surf shop where the hiring policy used to be* very much based on appearance. Surfboard inquiries were directed towards the guy who looked the most ‘surfish’. The fact that he was a bodyboarder was kind of a turnoff, but most people wandering into this place would get sucked into his vague, disingenuous patter and walk out with something completely unrelated to their needs.
*Not sure what the story is now, but it is a major store in its locale.
Hahaha that’s amazing!
Just read an article about surfboard design you wrote several pieces for in a 1990 Waves mag, very interesting to say the least!
Over the years I’ve spent a bit of time helping out the guy that shapes my boards doing board repairs and other frivolous shit. People that can actually surf know exactly what they want, cause little fuss, and buy exactly what they need. Kooks come in, bore the shit out of you with their ‘surf’ stories, want to educate you about how epoxy is better than polyester, ask for a heavy glass job and then complain the boards heavy, ask for a light board then complain the board dings to easy. Oh, and they always get a spray on their board. Every fucken time.
And fins? As long as they’re in the board they work fine. Shape, size and material are greatly over exaggerated on performance.
They have a saying in the dirt bike world; it’s 80% the rider, 20% the bike.
I actually enjoy listening to kooks educating me on board design and everything surf related. It’s purely for my own selfish entertainment. Sometimes I like to feed their ego a little too. Just realized I am probably contributing towards the problem.
I do this. It feels good.
I am 110% an epoxy over poly guy and like to tell this to everyone I meet.
Epoxy. A cunt to work with, a cunt to fix.
Abhijit, I am Greebnurt. Good to know that I am not the only man commenting here who has an unusual name. Maybe you like your name, but for me, it has been a lifelong curse to be named after my great grandfather. In today’s America, this is a burden I must shoulder each morning I awake. Hopefully, unlike me, you are proud of your name. Maybe you are blessed to live in Pakistan where a name such as yours would not be questioned each time it is spoken.
Greebnurt, I sadly live in San Diego where the phonetically challenged white man does, in fact, regularly question my name out of frustration and righteous indignation at my non-conformity.
I feel your pain, brother.
Garage sale buyers always ask if the leash is included. After they already haggled $22 off the sales price. I always said “sure” for shits and grins. They walked away like victory was theirs that day. I walked away, closed my eyes and envisioned that first wave they caught…with a fucking boogie board leash as a leg rope. Suck It Clown!
Why is it coiled? Oh that’s just to keep it out of the way. All the pros are doing it. Aren’t you?
Haggled like Hell. Let’s hope he doesn’t get Sophie Raabid’d.