Select to expand quote
Ted the Kiwi said...
My experience with channels - and I am talking years ago now - was that they were wonderful in glassy / light off shores. But as soon as the wave face had a slight bit of bump you just got bounced off. Have surfed a mates AB with deep tails channels often in Indo this year and it's been incredible. Pretty stiff bit goes like a rocket. Always in good waves though so hard to make a call based on those experiences.
How do you find them in a variety of conditions Mr Drip?
They certainly come alive in clean conditions. And it's not that I would describe them as stiff, but certainly aren't for radical, snapalicious surfing in a HP board. My twin fin (5'10") is one of the most versatile boards I have ridden. The channels must add some hold in big surf as I have surfed triple head high waves on it, while in knee high surf they seem to make it faster and drivier than my two other twins.
The other channel board I have is a high performance thruster (6'6" X 2 5/8 X 18 3/4). Super quick, huge carves and hacks, but doesn't release off the top if I throw it vertical.
In lumpy conditions, I tend to think it's not that the channels are detrimental, but that they stop working and the other curves on the bottom come into play. On the twinny there is double concave running through a vee AND then the channels were put in (that's just what Tom Hoye recommends). In the HP, I asked Al Bean to emulate that. His channels are a little different too because the rail channels extend further than the center channels so that may account for some of the difference.
The AB (in the south west AB means Al Bean not Al Byrne btw) board doesn't feel bad in lumps - it just feels like a normal board, not a supercharged rocket ship.