RealSurf Surfers' Forum

80kg 5’10 surfer.
looking a 9’0 for beachies.
Surf Sydney most of the time with the odd trip up and down the coast. Might join the mal club.

How much does nose concave matter?
There’s are few options on the Bumtree at the moment.
Board 1.
9’2. EPS construction Wide point back 50/50 rails rolled vee in the tail with nose concave.
Board 2.
9’0. Wide point back PU 50/50 rails, rolled Vee all the way through.

Decisions decisions

I’d go rolled vee, but that’s just my personal preference.
And PU over EPS too.

All my mals have had pronounced nose concave. Helps with noseriding if done properly. Tail rocker is a big factor in beachbreaks. A lot of trad mals are too straight and flat rockered for that as they are designed for trimming on little long point breaks. McTavish had a lot of success early on with the mal revival using heaps of tail rocker in his boards.

Purists will go for heavy PU singles with straight rails and little rocker. If you want something you can chuck around EPS has a number of advantages.

At what age did you guys start riding longboards or were they always there?

*Not a shit stirring question.

I bought my first log when I moved to the N coast aged 28.
Before that only rode standard shorties, step ups, semi guns.
First log was a 2nd hand 9’2 takayama noserider
Sold that and got a 2nd hand 8’11 gato heroi playboy.
Sold that for a 9’8 mick pierce 60s Bennett style which was way too big.

Then I went logless for a few years and now have a 9’0 Nigel Beckham (single, not twin)

I shouldn’t have sold the gato. It was such a good board. Rolled vee into straight vee, pinched rails. Could jam huge rail turns.

Really suited how I wanted to surf.

Although my first surf on it I thought is made a huge mistake. I had no idea how to surf it. It just felt foreign under my feet and I couldn’t do anything.

Definitely took some getting used to.

I’ve been told the Gatos are tricky to dial in but once you do

The rails can be knife like

Thud wrote: ↑

Thu Aug 26, 2021 7:15 pm

At what age did you guys start riding longboards or were they always there?

*Not a shit stirring question.

I started riding a longboard when my daughter was born. So 26 years ago. Living at Nth Bondi. Figured I wasn’t going to get around as much for a while. A mate who lived around the corner had his brothers Farrelly stored in the rarely used outside dunny so I used to borrow that. About the same time a mate living over in Marrickville found an old 60s pig board at an Op Shop. We went halves in the $20 price. It’s still sitting at the back of my board pile. Reverse D fin. Pretty fcuked up but looks good.
Still mostly rode a normal board for years though.

I bought a Nat Young board second hand from some kid over in Curl Curl but it had been snapped and snapped again in largish surf fairly quickly. Then I bought a high performance Paul Hutchison Bear. Didn’t like that though. You had to surf it off the tail and turn too much.
Then I got second hand tuflite Takayama. Had a lot of fun on that. You could really draw a good line on large waves. Snapped that. Then I got a Rabbidge which I still have and it’s a classic single fin. Like riding a Cadillac. Had a big run of surfing that but stopped riding a mal. Basically only surfed that at Crescent.
Mainly riding midlengths and fish.
After trying to negotiate the really crap banks last year I started riding the Rabbidge down here again and thought I might get back into mal riding full time. Got a blady high performance epoxy mal that I can carry around and chuck around easily. Really enjoy that.

Thanks Beans and Buddy. Appreciate the answers

I bought a McTavish Fireball mal when I moved back to SA 4 or so years ago. First mal I ever owned but bought it to surf one particular wave, or stretch of coast anyway, which is very consistent. It’s a perfect mal wave, guys surf it on shorties but it’s too slow for that. Loving the mal for days when I wouldn’t otherwise go out. I feel like maybe the fireball has a little too much tail lift, or maybe even too much rocker right through for where I use it

Yep, that’s my feeling about them. He made a lot of those style boards for more beach break type surfing. The same tail lift in my Carver works great. Some of his other models are more trimming machines. Billy Tolhurst mals are about my favourite allrounders.

First longboard was a Brett Munro ‘Wategos’ model, deep rolled vee, no concaves, 9’5” bought around age 42. Surfed it a fair bit but let it go.
2nd longboard is 9’2” Ronnie Goddard which is a magic board and I still have it 10 years later. Deep nose concave to a double in the mid section to a vee in the tail, chined rails.
Also have a Goddard 8’6” ‘beachbreak’ sorta thingy and a 10’ Le Maitre Glider.

tootr wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 27, 2021 12:37 pm

First longboard was a Brett Munro

Brett and Billy Tolhurst worked together, so you'd assume that theres a bit of cross-pollination there.

Absolutely.
Tolhurst and Goddard were at Bob Coopers back in the day.

tootr wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 27, 2021 12:47 pm

Absolutely.
Tolhurst and Goddard were at Bob Coopers back in the day.

Tolhurst worked for Bob when he was still going to school, and Cooper rated him pretty high as a shaper.

My first second hand minimal was a Brett Munro. Great board.
Robert August used to get Billy Tolhurst to make all his boards over here.
Still see the odd fish and longboard around.