ACID

OUTLINE

The outline resembles that of a high performance shortboard, into a hip/flyer rounded pin. The inspiration came from our Nitro model shortboard, one of our 2 best performance boards, it has a very curvy outline. This allows the board to drop and climb freely, so you have a very top to bottom speed pump action. When you initiate a turn it’s responsive, then as your weight transitions onto the back foot, for tight bottom and top turns, the Flyer and narrower tail kicks in. This allows the rider to square off the turn, so rather than slowly angling the board so its almost vertical as you hit the lip, as would happen with a straighter outline giving a longer arc to the turn, instead the bottom turn is so much tighter, that your approach to the lip is more vertical to start with, leaving you with more body torque for a solid snap back down. Also, with the tail pulling in quite tight, it takes away excess tail area, allowing a quicker rail to rail transition off the back foot, added to that, the ability to wash off speed in a bottom turn, like stalling for a barrel. The general aspect ratio compared to a performance surfboard? Slightly wider forward, its common on SUP to sneak forward a bit when catching waves, this extra area keeps the stability and holds the rider’s weight forward, the tail is slightly narrower, if you out rightly convert a surfboard to a SUP, you can get outrageously wide tails, these get hard to manage at speed.

RAILS

Low rail with a distinctly tucked under edge that carries past the flyer. A low rail is just so much more sensitive when surfing. When you initiate a turn, the first thing you do is bury one rail, if that rail is thick and boxy, you’re trying to fight it into the water, the faster you go, the harder it is to bury a thick rail because you’re working against both buoyancy and the flow of oncoming water. The bottom edge is really tucked under, with less hard edge than you would find on most other boards in the tail. This helps with really late drops, the type where you’re almost falling out of the lip. A hard edge, in this case, has more release, so at the point on the face where the board wants to engage and stick, it doesn’t, it will drift a little, potentially placing you under a falling lip. But the tucked under edge, holds the face really well (like an old school log), if it’s a free fall, it will grab the face at the very point you land, letting you ease in while holding a higher line and keeping you out of trouble.

ROCKER

It’s a clean curve nearly all the way, with a subtle acceleration in the tail. In comparison to a high performance shortboard rocker, it’s a little flatter forward, with slightly more tail rocker. This flatness forward helps with paddling and carry into the wave, while the tail rocker helps in bringing such a larger board around. If you run a rocker like this on a shortboard, it could get a little sticky in tight pocket snaps on the way back out, that flatness can place more front rail in the water, so you tend to shoot a little wider of the power zone. However on SUP, they are just too big to find yourself deep and tight under the lip, the sheer size of the board leaves you in the right spot for this rocker anyway.

BOTTOM

Single concave upfront and through the middle, to a double concave into the back foot and subtle V on the exit. The concave upfront helps initiate a turn earlier, keeps the board responsive, as your rail will engage the second your mind decides to. The double concave then creates a spine where the stringer would be but also allows the transition into the subtle V to be smoother. This subtle V kicks in when you are right on the back foot, when somewhere critical it offers that bit more hold and control helping to bed the tail in.

DECK

It’s relatively rolled on this board, the goal being a low rail. At paddling speed, the water rushes over the rail, as the rail is submerged below the waterline, this creates more stability because the board can’t bob around without having to lift the water with it. While stationary it’s not so effective.

FINS

Thruster. We also run larger fins than usual. A lot of crew when they first get their boards, freak out about the size of the side fins. If your board is smaller, like a kite or tow board, being small the board can sit deeper in the water, offering a degree of hold from the board alone, so you really don’t need big fins. But when you have a large board, all that area keeps you on the surface, so you are more dependent on fins to stop the board from sliding around. In combination the fins are a control surface, similar to the giant ailerons you see on stunt planes, as they catch the water with an angle of attack, the response is swifter.