Ask Carroll

[Natho]

Nick, looking at a couple of MC deep concaves I noted a slight rasing of the stringer in the middle of the concave, about midway through the board. My board has got it. Is this intentional? Possibly it was just a result of not sanding right down around the stringer. Are your MCs epoxy glassed? It looks like MC has started moving away from epoxy from what I can see based on latest boards in the racks.

[Nick Carroll]

Ah that's not intentional, they're machine cut so the stringer should be flush, maybe the blanks sucked -- sometimes foam recedes slightly with age.

Re epoxy, I dunno, all mine are epoxy, I like it!

[Natho]

It's ok I was tripping. Just felt my baby and the stringer is flush. It just feels slightly raised where the decal is layed over the stringer. It's the bloody decal.

[spork]

Nick, re you comment that its better going right than left, have you any idea why? I have a board that I really like on my forehand, a roundtail quad, but I just can't seem to get comfy on it on my backhand. I go pretty good on slightly bigger waves but generally Iv'e been avoiding it when its predominantly a r/h surf. I met a guy who told me it was probably the nose width and that it was a big factor in going right or left?

[Nick Carroll]

Yeah I know why -- the vee in the tail responds better to heel pressure in the backside bottom turn and toe pressure in the top turn. To surf it well frontside requires a slight adjustment in timing the turns, which to me doesn't feel as natural as on the concaves.

There is literally a million things going on with surfboards, waves and technical skills so I wouldn't be too presumptuous about your board and why you're not feeling it backside as much. I do suspect however that many surfers wrestle slightly with quads backhand; the natural tendency in backside surfing is to lean fairly hard in the bottom turn and surf a bit more up and down, while the quad's big strength is in down the line driving. Thus on some (not all) quads, some (not all) surfers are battling the board backside while feeling fine frontside.

Try turning a little higher on the face on takeoff and see if you can get those two inside fins working for you before trying any other kinds of turn backside, and see what happens. If the board frees up a bit, you know what the issue is.

[Natho]

Nick, have you tried the AB - 1 fins? Im not big into mixing up fins but have a chance to try a set. Thinking they may go ok in the deep concaved MC? Something about the template of them does not have me jumping to try then though. Then again proof will be in how they surf.

[Nick Carroll]

Nah I haven't tried the ABs in a Maurice. Something about 'em makes me feel they wouldn't work - maybe not deep enough or enough tip. The ABs work with channels which seem to do a fair bit of the fins' work for them. I have a funnier MC, a 6'7" which we made for small to medium Sunset, it seems to like small fins and I might give 'em a go in that. But the tail's a fair bit narrower than in the sub 6'0" MCs.

[Nick Carroll]

But yeah I have heaps of sets of AB fins of all varieties and use 'em liberally in his boards.

[Natho]

Thanks Nick yeh AB the template does look more suited to a narrower tail or gun. The tail in mine is pretty wide. Time will tell if its too wide. Might stick with the slightly bigger fins I already have in it. Seems to be working. Something makes me think farrk wish it had a round tail or rounded pin. The tail just looks like it wants to slide out, but it hasn't yet. It's just the wider round square thing. They just look slippery.

[swvic]

I know your're a round/round pin liker of MC's deep concs, but there's some footage of you on a little swallow at big Bells. MC seems to go for his SWATs as his paddle in boards (at least up to max Bells & Winki). With that square tip, they sort of look like they'd surf semi-squash to me. Have you ridden any and are they somewhat a hybrid between swallow/squash?

[Nick Carroll]

Well I've got a few swallows too, including that particular one, a 6'0" moon tail SWAT pro tow, very deep concave, it's easy to surf in waves up to 10’ plus, covers a lot of ground. The main thing with 'em is the way the outline falls clean off the back, so there's a fairly straight rail line back there to hold speed through long turns. Like with all swallowtail types, the tail area is reduced a bit from what it'd be with a square tail, so you gain some sensitivity that would otherwise not exist.

[MrMik]

Just thought of an interesting question....

Would it be possible to market tow-in surfing in some fashion similar to tandem para-gliding, parachuting, diving with an instructor etc etc ?

As in: Pay an experienced professional surfer to assess your ability and then tow you into suitably big-ish waves?

I guess the main hurdle would be that the competent instructor/surfers all want to tow-in surf with their buddies when it's on, instead of earning money by towing tourists...

[swvic]

I know you've more than paid your dues to surfing to get access to that many surfboards. To say I'm jealous is a gross understatement. Thanks, though, your generosity is greatly appreciated

[Nick Carroll]

Just thought of an interesting question....

Would it be possible to market tow-in surfing in some fashion similar to tandem para-gliding, parachuting, diving with an instructor etc etc ?

As in: Pay an experienced professional surfer to assess your ability and then tow you into suitably big-ish waves?

I guess the main hurdle would be that the competent instructor/surfers all want to tow-in surf with their buddies when it's on, instead of earning money by towing tourists...

Oh dear. I feel sure that now you have mentioned this, it will actually happen.

[Natho]

What like celebrity Tow Ins?
RCJ towes in Kyle Sanderlands, or worse still TC towes in that horrible pompous fat f@kk Matt Preston. I can see a reality show coming out of this.

[Beanpole]

Please, please, Big Kyle going over the falls at Shippies would be an excellent promo for his posthumous career. Bring it on.
Actually any chance of convincing Tony Abbott to have a crack at it as a vote winner?

[dUg]

Well, there may be some such people in control of various forecasting websites, but I don't know 'em.

The guys I know or have known quite well include Sean Collins, Ben Matson and Ben McCartney. Sean was founder and developer of the first professional surf forecasting operation, Wave-Trak in California, which morphed into Surfline and is now Surfline.com. I got to know Sean really well while living in California and over the years after when I'd spend up to three months a year in CA and nearby. He was definitely a control freak but in a great way -- a super committed surfer who had a mix of interests and personal qualities that lent themselves perfectly to surf forecasting, or more broadly, an understanding of how weather and climate interacts with coastlines to produce surf. Like many Americans I know, he was smart and business-savvy and had little hesitation in turning his skills to the development of a business, yet he did so mostly just to fulfil his bigger goals of being able to spend time working on understanding surf meteorology (and scoring really good Mexican pointbreaks). Pretty much everyone else in the game has copied Sean or taken his lead in some way. I admired the hell out of him and wish he was still with us.

Ben Matson runs Swellnet and I like Ben immensely, I am sure he won't mind me accusing him here of being a forecast nerd, his enthusiasm for what he does is infectious and if anything I think he could spend more time himself working at the coalface of his website. For sure like Sean he is a control freak but most science-oriented people do have that streak. It deosn't seem to me like he's hiding or manipulating anything at all.

Ben McCartney is Coastalwatch's head forecaster, he doesn't own the company but he'd be the one tweaking stuff in the manner you describe -- I just think it's insanely unlikely, Ben is a most serious minded gentleman and I suspect quite sensitive in his own way, I bet he gets rattled enough by people yelling at him about forecasting without actually trying to add to the angst out there.

I feel all additions to the pool of knowledge about surfing and surf related subjects are good things (note I say "pool of knowledge", not "commentary", I find a lot of commentary about surfing to be boring, uninformative and tedious) and thus on the whole I feel that surf forecasting services are forces for OK-ness in the world -- certainly the work that guys like Sean and the Bens have done has added to many surfers' lives. Sean sure as heck taught me a lot of trippy things about swells, winds and coast effects that I might never would otherwise have known and I'm sure that's true of all the thousands of people who've read his Forecasting 101 stuff.

Can't really speak for the many other sites, magicseaweed and the like, who just seem to re-program the NOAA data and present it in another, not quite as accurate graphic form, I mean good luck to them but they're not adding to our pool of knowledge now are they.

Logic however would suggest that any surf forecasting site that made a point of misleading its customer base would sooner or later lose the goodwill of said base, who would simply hop off to one of the many rivals. They might accidentally mislead through an inaccurate forecast from time to time, but consistently? That would be a recipe for business failure.

dUg I sense this is a personal issue for you, I seem to recall some time back you became engaged in some sort of business venture with a surf site developer and the whole thing somehow went sideways. Are you sure your query is not arising from some personal bitterness, rather than a desire for knowledge? Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

Great answer NC, well considered and more detailed than I had expected - especially given the ever-so-slight tongue-in-cheek nature of my question .

Yes... I certainly was fairly heavily involved in one rather spectacular failure of a surf cam website ( and later, another spectacular success ), but it was about a dozen years ago. The allure for me was trying to find a way to apply the techy skills I had to some sort of surfing enterprise that would ultimately get me loads more time in the water, loads of chicks in bikinis, and free surf gear and travel forever . It's pretty much the same place the game leaders you have spoken of are coming from ( I think? ). It didn't work out, but at least it never got personal ( and hence, not bitter ). The same cannot be said for a couple of later surf-related online ventures, and the friendships that were burnt over them. But I digress...

I guess I hear a lot of cross-talk out in the water and in car parks, and of course the "big" websites ( Swellnet, Coastalwatch, and to a lesser extent Magicseaweed etc. ) are often mentioned. I've pretty much boiled it down to this: Noobs and novices who haven't figured out weather, tides and forecasting techniques pledge undying love for surf report / cam and forecast websites ( force=good ). More seasoned, confident campaigners enjoy the pics and commentary, but in general are agnostic about cams / reports / forecasts ( force=neutral ). Local chargers / custodians in country areas ( including rapid-growth tourist towns ) think report and forecast sites are kook / crowd factories run by pricks purely for profit ( force=evil ). Many surf related businesses are agnostic also. For coastal surf shops especially, good report or forecast = business = $. Bad report or forecast, even if incorrect, = -$.

But the reason I thought I'd ask you is because I wonder what those in the star chamber make of it all - what's the overall vibe among pros and business leaders?

As a case in point, consider Kelly Slater's recent much hyped-after-the-fact visit to my angry-local guarded, desolate, sunny state. For some reason, I just can't imagine Kelly pulling out his phone, looking at the Swellnet forecast ( no offence Craig B ) for SA in the week following the Rip Curl Pro event, and thinking, "say, y'know what? I might check out that Bombora near Streaky Bay. Looks like there might be some waves there around about next Thursday". Quite the contrary in fact, as I was drip fed tidbits and tweeted pics from the guy claiming responsibility for setting the whole shebang up under sworn secrecy, in the leadup to it. That's kinda the way I see it working at that level - you don't have to do a lot, because stuff gets layed on for you. Why bother looking at a surf forecast / report / cam website anywhere when you can drop everything and fly to the best waves in the world in a whim, or so it seems? Even in events someone else is making the call in regard to lay days, or even relocating events ( like moving the Bells Rip Curl Pro to Johanna or Phillip Island, as has happened in past years ). Perhaps in that way I have answered my own question - report / cam / forecasting websites are largely irrelvant to most of those involved in elite professional surfing competition. They're ambivalent.

The "information age" in the broader sense has undoubtedly advanced surfing, and more surfers in the water have meant more profits for the business end of surfing. It's spawned niches for backyard shapers, drawn backpackers to surf schools on the other side of the world, and maybe even allowed a small handful of info-savvy online specialists to eek out a living doing something they love. Surf report/ cam / forecast websites can probably claim a fair slice of that credit.

It is an interesting point you make about goodwill though, as I feel it cuts both ways. I often imagine following it to its illogical conclusion, where some sort of "surfsecrets" website is built ( Wannasurf, anyone? ). On such a website, you could buy privileged information about specific locations and conditions. The sort of local info Kelly was privvy to when he was here. But at a more parochial level, I often wonder who decides what's off limits, and why? Years ago there was outrage when SAFM radio announcer and surf nut Grant Cameron mentioned a previously little-known point break less than 90 minutes from the Adelaide GPO on a day it was near perfect. As far as he was concerned, everyone that mattered already knew about the spot and the very specific conditions under which it worked. Yet in doing so, however unwittingly, he spawned a legion of haters... and many would argue, the loss of that spot to crowds forever.

I suspect many surfers would view such incidents as anything but a positive contribution to the pool of knowledge!

[Nick Carroll]

Well I think it's not possible to reduce this to "elite who don't need surf forecast sites" and "everyone else" or whatever. It's a lot more organic than that. Your example of Kelly: well KS was one of Sean Collins's biggest acolytes, constantly bouncing off his spur of the moment trip ideas and getting a constant flow of information and education back from Sean which has helped him construct his own picture of the surf forecast universe. I'll guarantee he made his own call on going to SA based on his own reading of the forecast charts on Surfline and elsewhere. (You're always going to get people claiming responsibility for Kelly's actions, by the way, but they never are -- responsible that is. Ask numerous long suffering Quiksilver marketing people: If he does something it's because he decided to do it.)

WCT events make deals with surf forecasters in an attempt to formulate plans for the event, and while most event directors are amateur forecasters themselves, they rely heavily on forecaster info and feedback, even on an hour to hour basis in some cases. Some event calls go awry as a result, some hit the nail right on the head, some go wrong because the event crew get the shits with the forecaster ... the whole gamut.

Basically, they are all relying on the same sources as anyone who happens to log on the Surfline Premium or whatever -- just provided in a little more precise local detail.

Without the development of surf forecasting businesses, which have freed up skilled people to improve their skills and provide more complete and targeted information, none of that stuff would be available to WCT events, Kelly, or whomever.

I feel in fact that this area, as with the surf itself, most surfers with Internet access are on a pretty level playing field re surf forecasting, availability of etc, and that the idea of a "star chamber" or whatever in surfing is a bit of a red herring. We're all in it together, however tempting it is to imagine otherwise. Though of course people like Kelly for instance have made lives where they're freer to use that info than most.

Likewise goes for the strain of localism in remote SA in my opinion. I have a visceral dislike of small town hostility toward "outsiders", perhaps because I've been responsible for something like it in the past myself -- to me it reeks of unhealthy fear and isn't the way to go about looking after a clean coast at all, indeed isn't even motivated by that ideal -- just uses it as a cover for something a lot more atavistic and dark. Not to mention hypocritical: willing to take advantage of others' efforts in the world re surf forecasting, surfboard manufacturing and a million other things, without being willing to open themselves up in return. Like, just admit it, you're not alone on the planet for fcuk's sake, maybe other people aren't the worst thing that could happen.