I went within a whisker of buying a second hand 10'2" DT tuflite a few weeks back. I wanted something with heaps of volume for a really thick bommy near my place.

I ended up getting a 10' Miske Model by Randy French simply because it had the most volume I could find, 101cc I think.

I finally got the chance to try it out today on the kind of wave I bought it for, really fat bottomed bommy type stuff, and I was gob smacked.

It allows my fat arse to get on the wave asap and at 23" plus wide, it’s a nice stable platform for me to get steady. I can't really say that the turns are slow; I'd say they were predictable, which I consider a good thing for a guy like me.

I also got to glide it across a wall today and that's where it really surprised me, it went like a bat out'a hell, not what I expected from such and incredibly thick board with such an incredibly thick rider and for some reason it's really easy to kickout on this thing.

As with all tuflites, they hold onto wax about as well and my mother in law holds onto sanity and although it’s not been a big problem with my other tuflite, this one begs you to move around a lot and do lovely big tail turns and things tend to get a bit slippery back there, especially when I don’t centre too well.

I’m thinking of getting some deck grip with a tail block but I’m not sure where to position it. On several occasions today, I tried really hard to look at where my foot was when I was turning using the leggy plug as a reference and it appears to be a good 12 inches from the tail (it’s a pintail).

Does this sound right? I notice short boards have them way way at the back.

I put mine 2 fingers in front of the leish plug, Or in the case of the fireball on top of the centre fin.

try a warm water wax or no good try cold water wax and maybe different brands.

The trick for me anyway is in a decent layer of base wax if not enough your top layer will slide off like a old womans sh..t

I would not grip the whole board.

As soon as I read your post, I went and checked the position of the fin in respect of where I think I had my foot, you're right, it's just about on top of the leading edge at the front of the centre fin but not quite as far forward as the 2 outside fins.

I guess that makes perfect sense as to where the best place to turn is, doh, why didn't I think of that. Of course short boards have them way back, that's where their centre fins are.

I'll see if I can find one I like, most I saw today had a funny lump just in front of the tail block, I think I'd prefer it to just be dead flat.

thanks

The bump you talk of, is a arch

This is good because you can levearge off it in your tuens but myself i like it because i can feel the pad easy with the arch in the pad.

Dont bother with a flat tail pad as you will not feel it so much, It will be there but where you will ask your self.