Ask Carroll

[crabmeat thompson]

is it true Hugh Jackman will be playing our MP?

[The Mighty Sunbird]

the modern version should be Brian in his pushbike gear

[Beanpole]

is it true Hugh Jackman will be playing our MP?

If we can't have trev as Bunker how about as Owl?

[godsavetheking]

Nick, there was an article in last weekend's Guardian magazine about this size 26 'supermodel' who has apparently put a rocket under the fashion industry and it got me thinking about the annual Surfing Life board test in the Telos. Sure, the advertisers must love those shots of racing snakes with pretty hair tearing it up on unfeasibly small boards, but for the real surfer (RealSurfer?) this is increasingly out of touch with their reality. Wouldn't it be more relevant to take along an average joe, a fat slob who'll never see 40 litres of volume again, and document his struggles and moments of triumph on size-appropriate boards? I'm thinking some sort of competition tie-in with a frozen pizza company might pay dividends, a golden ticket sorta thing. What business wouldn't want to be, and I quote, overwhelmed by the outpouring of feeling, not just from bigger-figured surfers, for whom posting a picture of themselves is a transformative, courageous act, but from, for example, young gay men struggling with body image. Genius or what?

[Nick Carroll]

oh yeah I reckon that'd be a huge hit

of course the boardmakers might kick up a bit of a fuss but imagine all the extra waves I would catch.

would this person be from Wales by any chance

[godsavetheking]

How very dare you

[Mr Percival]

Get thee behind me Queen!!

I've already put my hand up for this role.

[PeepeelaPew]

...

[PeepeelaPew]

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[Beanpole]

Can we take along some surf shop workers and make them watch the poor shmucks they sold their inappropriate boards to try to surf them in some Indo reef breaks?
Oh, that doesn't really work for you does it........here your money back.

[godsavetheking]

Yeah but it's a truth they don't want you to hear Legion. From the WSL's land of smiles and sunshine where everyone's always just happy to be out there with one other guy, to the shills at every level of every surf co whispering their siren song of endless gilded youth, the voice of the fat man is silenced. So as Slater will do tomorrow at the SeaWorld AGM, I'm calling on Nick Carroll to follow suit and give the whales a voice

[PeepeelaPew]

...

[ctd]

Well, there are at least a few shapers targeting the middle aged middle/heavy weight clientele and doing quite well out of it.

Nick, Legion (I think) mentioned keeping his fins razor sharp. As the semi-RSer most likely to land on his fins (and who sometimes manages to kick them while sitting on his board...) I always sand down my edges to a level of sharpness suitable for use as a custard knife.

So can a good surfer actually tell the difference (or benefit from) having razor sharp fin edges?

[Davros]

Just because a man wears a little foundation and knows all the words to Bucks Fizz Making Your Mind Up you accuse him of hiding the sausage. My mother and I have been coming to this website for 20 years.Your impertinent my dear. How very dare you.

[Mr Percival]

Don't let your indecision take you from behind.

Maybe you're surfing the wrong breaks Legion? Consider the proximity of your favoured haunts to frozen pizza purveyors, pie shops, and of course sex dolls. And nobody want to walk 100m from the car park to the water, ughhh.

[Nick Carroll]

Yeah but it's a truth they don't want you to hear Legion. From the WSL's land of smiles and sunshine where everyone's always just happy to be out there with one other guy, to the shills at every level of every surf co whispering their siren song of endless gilded youth, the voice of the fat man is silenced. So as Slater will do tomorrow at the SeaWorld AGM, I'm calling on Nick Carroll to follow suit and give the whales a voice

well yes but we aren't really talking about "fat" here are we, we are talking about sorta tubby. A bit around the midsection. Jowly. Slumping muscle structure. Carries himself with brittle confidence but privately worries about his declining state. Women don't look at him much any more. His wife conceals her own anxieties about him, confining herself to bouts of upbeat "healthy" cooking and occasional nudges toward a checkup at their GP. Mentally he feels sharp and he knows he is a better and more reliable person than he was at 21, but he also knows he can't paddle as fast, and he still makes the same mistakes on takeoff and in the lip as he has always made, just makes them more slowly. He senses what that person wrote about a man's quiet desperation and looks for a solution in foam, fibreglass, and fin systems. This model? That model? What's my litrage? Can I find myself in a JS Whatever or a Mayhem Thingummy?

yep there's a massive win for the Board Test! it can become a work of Social Realist fiction!

[Nick Carroll]

Well, there are at least a few shapers targeting the middle aged middle/heavy weight clientele and doing quite well out of it.

Nick, Legion (I think) mentioned keeping his fins razor sharp. As the semi-RSer most likely to land on his fins (and who sometimes manages to kick them while sitting on his board...) I always sand down my edges to a level of sharpness suitable for use as a custard knife.

So can a good surfer actually tell the difference (or benefit from) having razor sharp fin edges?

Yep, you definitely can tell the difference. Whether it is of any real benefit is another question. My own sense of it is that sharp trailing edges on flat inside foil fins are more important than on double foils, for the same reason that hard tucked rail edges are important - a little bit of extra lift and slightly quicker response in turns. Double foiled fins are about laminar flow and clean release and neither of those things are hurt too much by a slight blunting of the trailing edge. That blunting can be flat btw, a thin flat back edge is cool.

Sharp leading edges are silly and a cause of drag and turbulence.

[Nick Carroll]

ctd I should add to that: I think for most surfers and boards, super sharp fin edges of any kind are unnecessary and dangerous, and the occasional accidents involving them are invariably pretty horrific. So I advise you to keep doing the custard knife thing.