I'm still along way from getting totally used to my new 9' x 23" x 4" mal. It's very different to anything I've ever ridden.
So I may just be doing it wrong.
But I've completely lost traction twice now, once running up the nose, wave around waist high, board about half way up the wave, I got about 1/2 to 3/4 the way there and the board just dropped straight down the face. At the time I thought I was running too heavily and just bounced the board out, but now I'm not sure. On Friday I was on a wave around chest to head high, fairly low on the wave and tried to climb a bit higher to get more drive. Again the board just went sideways, I wasn't turning from the back, just a bit of inside rail pressure from just behind centre. My feeling is move the fin back, or use a bigger fin, but back of the board didn't slide around, as loss of fin would normally happen, it felt more like I'd lost grip from the rail.
Anybody had a similar experience?
Do I have to put weight further back to do any manoeuvring?

Firstly I'll try moving fin back, (it's about middle of the box at the moment), if that doesn't help I'll go to a longer fin.
Maybe even thicken the foil entry so it will handle a greater angle of attack.

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decrepit said..
I'm still along way from getting totally used to my new 9' x 23" x 4" mal. It's very different to anything I've ever ridden.
So I may just be doing it wrong.
But I've completely lost traction twice now, once running up the nose, wave around waist high, board about half way up the wave, I got about 1/2 to 3/4 the way there and the board just dropped straight down the face. At the time I thought I was running too heavily and just bounced the board out, but now I'm not sure. On Friday I was on a wave around chest to head high, fairly low on the wave and tried to climb a bit higher to get more drive. Again the board just went sideways, I wasn't turning from the back, just a bit of inside rail pressure from just behind centre. My feeling is move the fin back, or use a bigger fin, but back of the board didn't slide around, as loss of fin would normally happen, it felt more like I'd lost grip from the rail.
Anybody had a similar experience?
Do I have to put weight further back to do any manoeuvring?

Firstly I'll try moving fin back, (it's about middle of the box at the moment), if that doesn't help I'll go to a longer fin.
Maybe even thicken the foil entry so it will handle a greater angle of attack.

Post a picture of the board and fin.

9 x 23 x 4 is unique,at 4 inches you may not be engaging the rail ,specially if your a light weight, the other issue could be the fin,yes move it back if you intend to get up the nose and it should be a pivot type fin. 9.5 or 10 inches but at 9 foot go the 9.5.

and yes turn from the tail.

Board write up is here.
www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Surfing/Longboarding/Back-to-a-long-board-?page=1

Yes it's very floaty, I wanted to be able to kneel on it. But rails are quite thin, and there shouldn't be much volume in the water when I'm riding.
But theory and practise don't always coincide.






The top pic makes the tail look too thick, the bottom pic gives a better idea.

So this is the only pic I have of the fin in the computer at the moment, I'll get a better one this arvo. The fin is in the middle of the boom with legrope around it.

Are you in the right room they all look like wind surfers?

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Macaha said..
Are you in the right room they all look like wind surfers?

Thanks for the time and well spotted Macha.
The odd one out has the legrope round the back. I guy at the beach, said it looked more like a windsurfer than a mal, so you can be forgiven. but no windsurfer would work with this much tail rocker.
So now I've taken a couple more pics.
This fin is only 8" an old high wind from an early high wind wave board., So it's designed for relatively high speed, it's possible at low speed it has to run at a too high an angle of attack to generate required lift. It would probably work better in the mal with a thicker foil, but I'll try other stuff before modifying this one.


Here's my next biggest a 9"

I'll try this one next a bit further back and see what happens.
And here's a look at the board from the back.



So I'm so used to building windsurfers now, I used the same ideas to put volume in the mal. My windsurfers have no hang ups. just do what you ask of them. But I wave ride in the straps, so I'm always at the back, engaging the sharp tail rails

I don't know squat about noseriding! Now we have that out in the open...isn't that a lot of tail rocker...like as in too much tail rocker for an easy nose ride? Water wrapping around the tail (to an extent) rather than releasing?

I'm out

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Cuttlefish said..
I don't know squat about noseriding! Now we have that out in the open...isn't that a lot of tail rocker...like as in too much tail rocker for an easy nose ride? Water wrapping around the tail (to an extent) rather than releasing?

Well that's what I thought, but the experts, reckon, the tail's deep back inside the curl and the rocker holds the tail down which supports the nose. I've only had a couple of nose rides on it, but it's not slow, and the rocker certainly makes it loose when you get your feet back.

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Macaha said..
I'm out

Macaha, why?
I know this board is very different, but still basic effects should apply.
And I've found a 10" fin, that may just fix it.

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decrepit said..

Macaha said..
I'm out

Macaha, why?
I know this board is very different, but still basic effects should apply.
And I've found a 10" fin, that may just fix it.

Well my advice was purely based on longboards, looking at your impressive wind surfing quiver I know jack about.

Macaha, it is a longboard, it has no sail fittings, I paddle into a wave kneeling on it. With any luck I jump to my feet once sliding down the face. So your advice is valued, and I thank you for it.

The last time I had a board that I knelt on was 1966, and they were nothing like this one. Since then I surfed progressively shorter boards, until I had difficulty paddling them, and they started to grow, a 6' 11" late last century, then a 7' 11" about 10 years ago, and now almost back to my roots a 9' mal. I've had lots of surfing experience, but this is quite different, I'm only guessing at what's going on with this loss of traction.
We used to be able to "side slip" old mals from the nose, as a stall. just ride very high on the wave until the fin lost control, slip down the wave until fin regained purchase then take off again. But what happened the other day was from the middle of the wave not the top and it was very sudden and uncontrollable.
May be the weight of the board is a factor, this one at 5.5kg is probably a third or a quarter of those old planks.

My 2 cents. Throw a longer fin in , rocker means not enough fin in the water so it is losing hold.
You could also get more area in the tip of the fin to help it hold.

Maybe a farrelly fat boy type fin could work.

Also keep your weight back and over the tail to help keep the tail down sound like it is popping up and skipping.

As you said singles can slide but if it's not grabbing again the fin is just too small.

Thanks SP, I've found a 10' I'll put that in a bit further back and hope it doesn't stiffen the board up too much. Looks like there may be a wave on Tuesday to try it.

My 2 cents worth, the rails look quite hard, softer rails allow for the board to be drawn into the waves as water passes over them. Can't do anything about them so I'd go with fat boy fin right back and see how you go
Good luck

Yep rails are hard at the tail but get softer fairly quickly.
But it's never too late to change, if there's a good enough reason for all the extra work.

We've softened the rails on old slalom boards, to stop them trying to break our ankles, when sideways chop flips them over.

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decrepit said..
Thanks SP, I've found a 10' I'll put that in a bit further back and hope it doesn't stiffen the board up too much. Looks like there may be a wave on Tuesday to try it.

Forward problay isn't going to hurt it if it has lots of tail flip.
Rule of thumb from dale velzy is lay the fin flat with the base on the stringer and slide it till a third of the fin tip is over the rail and that should be pretty close to the best position for the fin

Video explanation to make up for my poor description..

m.facebook.com/watch/?v=3443447109117750&_rdr#

Thanks again SP, I get the idea, the wider the tail the further back the fin needs to be, I'll try that test tomorrow and see how it checks out.

Tried the 10" today and no adverse side effects, but wave to slow and green to test it properly. May get a better idea tomorrow, swell is forecast to rise half a metre.

With the big fin in I still had one slight lack of grip, with fin at back of track, which works out to the 1/3 of tip over rail.

Any thoughts on small side fins?
This may just fix it, if so what toe in? Point them at the nose, perhaps?

My old 9'x24" Blue Hawaii got a single 9.75 Naish surf fin and held in up to 5' waves.
It needed tris when the surf got bigger. 72 kg rider.
It couldn't catch 8' waves nearly as well as my 8' Pumeria Hanalea semi gun that was 20" wide.

I think the issue is how hard the rail seems at the rear of the board personally. Not much you can do about that unless you want to reshape it to a softer rail.
Use a larger fin like 11" Greenough style and see how that goes but if the 10" fin you tried is still doing it I'm thinking it's the rail.

Hi Decepit

Windsurf fins, I have found will not work well in longboards .... have tried. I have a several old US boxed wave fins from yester year wave sailing days and have tried them in various mals...only when the board speed is up (big surf) do they work....so you may be on the right track with the lift ratio. The wave fins I have tried don't turn (Pivot) well...they tended to slide. Given I am 95kg and 6'3 this may be similar to your experience.
I would try a larger dedicated longboard fin .... certainly Longboard fins have a longer base chord length and thicker foil section than windsurf fins (also usually a bit more swept back and tip flex too). My "go to" single is 10" no name fin but similar to this www.surffcs.com.au/products/fcs-ii-connect-gf-longboard-fin?variant=10099524862009
cheers
G

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climber said..
Hi Decepit

Windsurf fins, I have found will not work well in longboards .... have tried. I have a several old US boxed wave fins from yester year wave sailing days and have tried them in various mals...only when the board speed is up (big surf) do they work....so you may be on the right track with the lift ratio. The wave fins I have tried don't turn (Pivot) well...they tended to slide. Given I am 95kg and 6'3 this may be similar to your experience.
I would try a larger dedicated longboard fin .... certainly Longboard fins have a longer base chord length and thicker foil section than windsurf fins (also usually a bit more swept back and tip flex too). My "go to" single is 10" no name fin but similar to this www.surffcs.com.au/products/fcs-ii-connect-gf-longboard-fin?variant=10099524862009
cheers
G

Thanks guys, I'm yet to try the side fins on a decent wave, it's been mainly flat and mushy here. I'm not sure what the foil is like on the single. And I'm not sure of it's origin, could well have been a wave board fin, and designed for higher speeds, maybe I'll thicken it up to about a 10% thickness to chord ratio, with max thickness 30% forward. And give that a try if the side fins don't help.
I make my windsurf fins 9% thickness to chord, and max thickness around 40% forward

Jeff J

We had soft rails in the old days, we went to hard rails to help prevent spin out in high G turns. But that's not my problem, I'm loosing traction when I move up the front of the board. Could be due to too much buoyancy at the tail. Hopefully I'll get some decent waves to try the side fins out.