Where did you surf today ?

[Beerfan]

Got a 5'4" groveller and a 7'4" X 21" quad. 7'4" hasn't had much of a run, more for decent waves. Once a month at best at the moment so just surf my 7'er or my 8' supermal.

Sold my 5'9" keel fish. Loved it in good quality fast waves. Would be epic on a point. When I surfed a few times a week it's what I surfed the most, especially pre knee injury.

[Drailed]

Damn there were some cracking waves between the long lulls this morning, way more East in that swell then what's being reported. Best session in a while. Fast long glassy top to bottom waves.

[steve shearer]

The market spoke loud and clear on surftechs, consigning them to the dustbin of history within, what?, ten years?
Look amongst the top 34 for a surftech or even other epoxy sandwich boards and you'll look in vain (looks like Bourez, the last holdout is back on the pu/pe's, Toledo quit them, Taj before him).

Why? If they offered a performance advantage and a durability premium the pros would be all over them like flies to shitt.

The answer is the combination of materials still hasn't been able to hit that sweet spot where reliable handling is dialed in. They are too reactive.
That reactivity was at it's worst on the surftech. You could feel it paddling, that horrible hollow slapping sound they made when paddling over anything but sheet glass ocean.
That reactivity had a very slight performance advantage - and no doubt other lightweight epoxy sandwich boards as well- in small gutless beachbreak, especially for super high performance fins free and aerial surfing where boards can be quickly pumped for speed and boosted.
As soon as there is power in the wave, as soon as speed is implicit and doesn't need to be pumped for, that reactivity quickly becomes a liability, because it comes at the expense of reliable handling. That is not controversial, the market has spoken loud and clear on that point.

Yes, you can dial in custom epoxy compsands to compensate, mostly by lowering rail volume and overall volume.

Cranked you surf long period groundswell exclusively, right?
And from your board choices you're not looking at surfing high performance fins free surfing?

Have you thought about a Mitchell Rae smart board, or a NPJnr 2+1 or a nice Wayne Lynch custom?

[Cranked]

The market spoke loud and clear on surftechs, consigning them to the dustbin of history within, what?, ten years?
Look amongst the top 34 for a surftech or even other epoxy sandwich boards and you'll look in vain (looks like Bourez, the last holdout is back on the pu/pe's, Toledo quit them, Taj before him).

Why? If they offered a performance advantage and a durability premium the pros would be all over them like flies to shitt.

The answer is the combination of materials still hasn't been able to hit that sweet spot where reliable handling is dialed in. They are too reactive.
That reactivity was at it's worst on the surftech. You could feel it paddling, that horrible hollow slapping sound they made when paddling over anything but sheet glass ocean.
That reactivity had a very slight performance advantage - and no doubt other lightweight epoxy sandwich boards as well- in small gutless beachbreak, especially for super high performance fins free and aerial surfing where boards can be quickly pumped for speed and boosted.
As soon as there is power in the wave, as soon as speed is implicit and doesn't need to be pumped for, that reactivity quickly becomes a liability, because it comes at the expense of reliable handling. That is not controversial, the market has spoken loud and clear on that point.

Yes, you can dial in custom epoxy compsands to compensate, mostly by lowering rail volume and overall volume.

Firstly, you are using an inductive argument, inferring that because surfers in the top 34 don't ride them, they must be inferior to boards that they do ride, and by an even more questionable extension, that they are inferior to ALL poly boards, not just those used in competition.

There may be other reasons for that observable fact. For instance, providing boards to surfers in the top 34 is a process that Surftech may not have seen as a priority, consequently they did not attempt to provide the support that would be required for a top level surfer. Even if it was a priority, providing custom boards via the Surftech production process would have been a long, complex and involved process, prohibitively expensive and not at all timely. Sufficient reason to explain their limited involvement in the pro surfing scene. As far as I know the surfers only ever received production models, which may be great for the average surfer but not sufficiently dialled in to the ever changing requirements of a particular surfer (for a particular location and conditions (50/100 customs a year?).

Secondly, what the pros ride is pretty much irrelevant to 99% of surfers. If they thought a Surftech was a bit squirrelly and hard to control they would be completely stumped by the average pro surfers boards. I've ridden enough boards, both surftech and poly, to know what I want and what performs best for me.

Surftech does not manufacture their own boards. It was done in the Cobra factory in Thailand, arguably the best high volume manufacturer of surfboards that the world has ever seen. Anyone with money can order boards built to similar specs. I understand that Cobra has put their prices up for that particular process, to such an extent that they have priced surfboards out of the market.

As far a I've heard, Surftech suffered from bad management after Randy French sold out a few ears ago, currently they are experimenting with other suppliers and production processes.

[Davros]

NPJ Whale Tongue for older larger person for decent waves. In my future.

[Cranked]

Steve, I'm not saying what you say is incorrect, there's a good chance it is true, but I usually only ride in pretty perfect waves, but not always (wet season Indo), and I don't like bumpy, ribbed waves on any board.

Oh, and I love that ringing sound in chop. The way you can test if a compsand has water or structural problems is to rap it sharply with you knuckles, if it rings then its good, a dull thunk and its compromised.

[steve shearer]

Firstly, you are using an inductive argument,

I'm actually using an empirical argument. Good surfers tried them and eschewed them. They were rejected by good surfers for sound reasons. Those reasons are well known and commonly agreed upon.
Reasons that apply equally or more so to surfers of lesser ability.

Cranked for someone who is all over the shop with his quiver you seem to have suddenly discovered an amazing clarity with respect to board design and construction.
I think you are just being defensive because your sacred cows are being challenged.

You don't like bumpy, ribbed waves? What do you do all dry season when the tradewinds are blowing?

[foamy]

Steve, this isn't like the 90s banana chip boards.
Plenty of non-comp surfers ride epoxy because they just prefer them. That's empiricism.
De gustibus non est disputandum.

[steve shearer]

I get the whole subjectivity thing Foamy.

But the performance attributes of an epoxy, especially a surftech, just don't stack up if all you are surfing is long period swells on reefs in tradewinds.

[Beanpole]

I thought part of the problem for surftech was the very thing they tried to achieve. A surfboard so durable it would last for years. That's not a Marketting strategy if your competition is selling a product that has to be replaced every few months and the market accepts it.
A lot of surfers don't appear to want a board that lasts and lasts. Some do.

[PeepeelaPew]

...

[steve shearer]

I dunno Beany, I never heard anyone complain about that.
The way they surfed, very much more so.

They also snapped and dinged, and were a giant size pita to fix.

No doubt JD's compsands feel deluxe Legion. Whats the take-up of compsands like over there?
I know there's a couple diehard Margies shapers been messing around with them for years.

[PeepeelaPew]

...

[Cranked]

Firstly, you are using an inductive argument,

I'm actually using an empirical argument. Good surfers tried them and eschewed them. They were rejected by good surfers for sound reasons. Those reasons are well known and commonly agreed upon.
Reasons that apply equally or more so to surfers of lesser ability.

Cranked for someone who is all over the shop with his quiver you seem to have suddenly discovered an amazing clarity with respect to board design and construction.
I think you are just being defensive because your sacred cows are being challenged.

You don't like bumpy, ribbed waves? What do you do all dry season when the tradewinds are blowing?

If you think you served up an empirical proof then I'm very glad your not a scientist. You presented some facts and drew some conclusions which may be true or not.

Some examples of inductive reasoning:

• Jennifer leaves for school at 7:00 a.m. Jennifer is always on time. Jennifer assumes, then, that she will always be on time if she leaves at 7:00 a.m.
  The cost of goods was $1.00. The cost of labor to manufacture the time was $.50. The sales price of the item was $5.00; so, the item always provides a good profit.
  Every windstorm in this area comes from the north. I can see a big cloud of dust caused by a windstorm in the distance; so, a new windstorm is coming from the north.
  Bob is showing a big diamond ring to his friend Larry. Bob has told Larry that he is going to marry Joan. Bob has bought the diamond ring to give to Joan.
  The chair in the living room is red. The chair in the dining room is red. The chair in the bedrrom is red. All chairs in the house are red.
  Every time you eat peanuts, your throat swells up and you can't breath. So, you are allergic to peanuts.
  All cats that you have observed purr. Therefore, every cat must purr.
  Two-thirds of the students at this college receive student aid. Therefore, two-thirds of all college students receive student aid.
  All of the girls in the class were blond, therefore all girls in this neighborhood are blond.
  Etc, etc

You don't like bumpy, ribbed waves? What do you do all dry season when the tradewinds are blowing?

FFS, its dead offshore, protected by a 300' cliff, there's no fetch and its like that for 8 months a year. I call it glassy, or rippled.

I think you are just being defensive because your sacred cows are being challenged.

No I'm being defensive because you are attacking the conclusions I have reached regarding my preferences. For some reason you seem to think my experience is not valid, I'm clearly stating what works for me, I've tried hundreds of boards and I prefer compsand or slightly less so, epoxy eps. It might be because I'm not a such a good surfer, or because I ride bigger boards and their weight and flex is completely different for boards of that size as compared to HPSBs, so compsand works, maybe I'm just used to that weight and flex rate, maybe its the waves I surf, whatever it is I have a lot of experience and I'm not about to waste my time and money buying non epoxy eps compsands, I've done that too many times already.

My quiver is changing because I'm surfing more now and moving down in size and volume and surfing waves that are a bit more critical.

[Beanpole]

As far as choice goes, Steve, I think it's more a case of the turn over not being quick enough to warrant the cost of production. They were initially sold at a premium price. Take Al Merricks as an example. There's a lot of old Flyers, etc in tuflite around but you don't see many old pu Merrick boards.

Pros have the luxury of bespoke boards on tap.

Personally my surfboard buying covers a range of factors. I have usually bought second hand boards because I can afford to try a wider range that way. I'd say my rate over the years would be one in five boards that really click. Narrowed it down considerably over the years. So at this stage I'm looking for long lived reliable shapes that might give me as much performance as I can handle but also be relied on in more challenging conditions.

[Cranked]

Well Bert came from here obviously but they're a minority. Just the usual mix of CI, DHD, JS, etc and popouts in the metro area. Each local area with a slightly higher standard of surfing has it's own preferred shapers by the locals, usually with some kind of tie to the area. Semi-rural areas tend to have a higher percentage of local shapers.

My first compsands were Berts, a few years before Surtech started making them. Before that I had talked with Marty from Delta Designs, he wanted $1200 to make me one, this mind you, in about 1998 or around then, when a poly board was around $400 (?)

[Cranked]

The market spoke loud and clear on surftechs, consigning them to the dustbin of history within, what?, ten years?
Look amongst the top 34 for a surftech or even other epoxy sandwich boards and you'll look in vain (looks like Bourez, the last holdout is back on the pu/pe's, Toledo quit them, Taj before him).

Why? If they offered a performance advantage and a durability premium the pros would be all over them like flies to shitt.

Hang on Steve, your telling us that 3 surfers were able to compete at the very highest level on compsands! Thats actually a ringing endorsement. They are good enough to compete at the highest level with, but not good enough to win. Who cares? If they are as bad as you say that would have been impossible, it would have been something those surfers would never have even attempted.

You've inadvertently proved just how good a surftech could be for the average surfer and fully justified them in my eyes.

Thanks.

[steve shearer]

My quiver is changing because I'm surfing more now and moving down in size and volume and surfing waves that are a bit more critical.

Then you'd definitely benefit getting off those horrible pop-outs, even if for no other reason than the personal dignity dividend of not having one under your arm when you walked down the cliff.