Always fun to get a "new" board! For the boards I carry inside my car I make covers that keep the wax off the seats. I got the idea from someone at San O who had bought his in Japan. It's made of nylon fabric (I used water resistant). You cut it several inches bigger than the outline of your board then hem it with space for elastic that pulls it tight once installed. Sort of like a shower cap for your board. Quick, easy and works like a charm. Much easier than a bag or sock even. Have fun with that new board!
Several points 1. If you're coming down from a longboard then a twin+fish is not a great option. That's a step too far for where you're at. The traditional fish is designed to work in the same waves as longboards and they're designed to carve the long line on your forehand. They are harder to surf and turn and control on your backside. The wide point forward requires an extra stroke or two to get into the wave and the flat rockers + wide tail makes for a very unforgiving transition from paddling to surfing. The wave you got at 8:02 in the vid shows this. You should have angled more INTO the curl (not away) and put another stroke into it. Also, you want to arrange your stance with your rear foot directly over the fin and push HARD into it to make the fins work for you. Drop knee a bit on your rear foot to put more of your weight over that fin. And don't stand up quite so straight. Most like a half-squat. 2. At your stature, a 5-10 in a fish design is way too much volume and float. You aren't big enough to duckdive the board and you don't have the weight and leverage to turn the wide tail. A 5-10 fish needs a minimum of 180# surfer to muscle it around and duckdive it and such. You basically have to overpower the tail and keel area to move it around; otherwise you're just surfing it flat. 3. If you're coming down from a longboard the logical transition would be a 6-2 or 6-4 midlength that's foiled for a girl, either in a 2+1 or possibly a quad . Twins (as in, not a keel) are loose but they often get squirrely and slip out when you're surfing on your backside. A 2+1 or quad will do most of the work for you without having to actively pump them, or with minimal pumping. NEVER buy a board with a thruster setup until you can pump your fin cluster because thrusters don't work that well until you get into putting a lot of water through them. Most surfers of average ability surf better on a quad or a twin+tail dragger. Tell your boyfriend to get his thruster converted to a quad - it'll change his life. 4. The key to making any fin setup work is getting your rear foot over the main fin(s). If you're stance is at all forward of the fins then you won't have enough leverage to push the tail around. With high performance twins, that sweet spot is about 8-9" forward of the tail block; for quads its usually 5-6" or so from the tail block (slight forward of the rears. (for thrusters that rear fin is only 3.25" or 3.5" forward of the tail block). Most surfers can find the sweet spot for their rear foot more easily on a twin or quad than on a thruster. 5. Widths - as a girl you have narrower shoulders so you don't want to get a board that was designed for the way guys are built. you need a little narrower so you won't have to rach out to your sides to paddle. A little narrower will be more comfortable to paddle, which you will need; because shorter and smaller boards require a LOT more paddling and wave judgement. 6. The most versatile design for transitioning to the shorter lengths will be the contemporary "alternative" designs that feature a moderate rocker, like 4" nose and 2" tail. That's all the rocker you need to handle up to head-high conditions. For a 120# or 130# girl the max width would be maybe 20" at the wide point, 14" nose and 15" or 15.5" tail, and again in the 6-2 or possibly 6-4 length at the most. Think 80s designs. Not Slater's designs. 7. AFTER you get the hang of a relaxed "domesticated" type board then you'll be ready to push it with a fish (but only for certain conditions). For your stature thge max length would be maybe 5-4 and again, not too wide. But TBH it'll probably be a couple years before your progression gets to that point. Those guys at Mollusk should have explained all of this to you. They know better than to sell a 5-10 fish to a girl who is transitioning out of longboards. Shame on them.
One more thing, try to get in the habit of keeping your tail under you when you finish a ride. Try not to allow yourself to just fall back or worse, to dive foreward. If you're relying solely on the leash to keep your board then it's just a matter of time before that leash breaks or your loose board hits someone next to you. Same applies when surfing a longboard. You have more control over your dismount if you keep your rear foot planted on the board as much as possible. BTW, the surf always sux on the day you buy a new board. Always.
@@gdaddy7096 woahhhh thank you so much for the tips. even if it isn't the perfect board, I've kinda figured I gotta learn/try out different boards somehow. It's hard to figure out what would work best for me and buying used/within my budget is kinda the only way I'm financially able to try things out at this time. I will say, it did feel a little big at the nose (I gotta be further forward to get into waves), could only duck dive small waves, etc. but overall it generally felt good! I've only been on 3 shorter boards so getting the feel for what actually works and is suitable for me is hard. I'll tell my bf about the quad. he's really into surfing/boards and I'm sure he'll appreciate the tip. I also short boarded for a year in Hawaii. rode a 2+1 actually that I loved and still have. I haven't been on a shortboard in almost a year tho so I wanted something that would be easier to paddle & get into waves with. again, thanks for the advice! I'm gonna read it through thoroughly because there are so many great nuggets of advice.
@@savtuma First off, most damage that will occur to a surfboard will occur in storage, shipping and handling, not in hitting stuff while surfing. If you're storing a fish by standing it up in a rack or against the wall, fold a big towel into a pad so as to reduce the pressure on the tail tips - those are always very vulnerable. Personally, I store the shorter boards in a rack and usually stand them up on their nose, not their tail. I store the midlengths and long boards by hanging them in the wall of my garage (without the fins). ------------------- Most people who transition from longboards to shortboards end up going through several steps in their progression and a bunch of different boards. Mostly on a hit/miss basis and dependent upon their funding. It's easy to get into a board only to have it stall/delay your progression. Most people get sucked into that loop, including me - I wasted a whole lot of time and money due to not really understanding what I was trying to do in my surfing and not understanding which design elements fit my local conditions. Don't do what I did. One note of caution is that most of the workers at the surf shops don't really understand board design; they only know which models they like. That isn't the same thing as understanding what exactly it is makes that board work for them. Their job is to sell you something out of the shop's standing inventory, not necessarily to point you in the right direction for your next step. I would say that except for the shapers, almost none of the retail board reviewers on RU-vid actually understand how the different design elements affect the ride or what combinations fit the various styles that surfers use. One rule of thumb I would suggest is that if someone can't tell you what blank they would use to build the board they're trying to sell you then they probably aren't that well informed on board building or design. --------------------- One thing you can do is to be on the lookout at what other surfers at your local are doing. You're not only looking for the surfers who are surfing the same way you are trying to surf, but also at the surfers who are NOT surfing the way you want to surf - that way you can sift between the boards that are doing what you want to do vs the boards that are doing differently. Once you spot someone who is surfing in the manner you are trying to emulate then paddle over and ask to look at their board. Most surfers are happy to answer a few questions (3 or 4 questions, not 25 or 30 question) about their boards and what they like about them. It's even more chill when they're walking in from a session and getting ready to leave. Watch what they're doing when riding the wave, especially with their stance. Practice your pop-ups at home so you can plant your rear foot where you want it. If you're going to change your stance during your ride, limit most of the movement to your rear foot - forward to put the board into trim and drive off the rails and back to leverage over the fins. There's perhaps 4-6" of movement in between the two. A little shift in where your weight is goes a long way.
Forgot to add, you can practice at home using a full sized "template" by outlining your board in chalk on a driveway or sidewalk. Measure your board for where the fins are and draw them in on your "template". Practice your pop-ups so that your default is to get your rear foot over your fins. That way you won't have to think about it while you're actually doing it. Watch youtube vids featuring that modified fish design to see how those surfers are positioned and what their stance is - center of gravity is relatively low, especially when they're turning. That's the default you want to practice for.
alright, sav 🙂 nice new board and vlog! so good to watch it as usual while i'm having my coffee with cookies and stuff, this tuesday morning ☺ so yeah! hope everything is going well for you, for nando as well (is he sick? or by the time this vid is uploaded he isn't sick anymore?) and that you can catch good waves with the new board 🙏 have a good one
