Elmako wrote:....Because of this I was able to catch most of the set/better waves and connect sections that otherwise I would have struggled with a shorter rail and sat a few meters deeper and out than the crew on std shorter boards , it felt great.....However I do have to say that when the sections slowed down and the open face was ahead I would have prefered to be on a shorter board, so for me it is a bit of a trade off, you get better set waves with a proper semi-gun however you do sacrifice maneuverability on the open face....
that's the catch22. the trade off between bagging as many as possible and then best attacking the ones you nab. for mine, i love the length of rail and the longer-arc projection it provides vs. higher maneuverability. happy to cruise and grind out through longer turns and arcs in bigger stuff.
again, it begs the question as to 'why' there hasn't been a whole body of work dedicated to creating winter-gun type boards that focuses strictly on "bagging the maximum number of waves AND blasting them to pieces". as at this stage, shapers seem to focus on one or the other, but not both. as again, by and large shapers simply don't seem to focusing on winter guns. just the indo-step up stuff.
maybe for winter-swell guns, it's more of a reactive process for them (ask for one, and we'll shape you one, but we're not going to focus on it, because the market's not there for them)? again, more chicken-and-egg stuff. if they DID pro-actively focus on building the ideal board for big winter swells, and marketing them (well), then maybe it'd take on more? the demand and market should be there for it, and seems pretty fkn untapped at the moment
surfers are like sheep after all. if you tell what's good for them and make it sound sexy then watch 'em gobble it up..!