After browsing the latest waveboard offerings from major brands websites (Starboard, Patrik, Naish, Severne, etc) it seems swallow tails are now in vogue.

Is it just a fashion trend or has there been some design revelation ?

There's plenty of info describing the characteristics of different tail shapes for surfboards:
www.surfertoday.com/surfing/the-different-types-of-surfboard-tails

Back in the 80's when windsurf waveboards were mostly custom made by local shapers, there were all sorts of tail and bottoms shapes (I still have the Assy I took to Hookipa in the shed ), but by the 90s waveboard designs stabilised on the rounded pintail and stayed that way for years. I noticed some brands offering square tails a couple of years back but that seems to have died off.

How do these latest swallow tail boards feel compared to the classic rounded pintail waveboards, in typical east coast Oz conditions?

I do prefer a nice pin for jump landing.
Swallow works too but can be a bit harsh.
Depends a bit on rear footstrap distance to tail end also.

Multi fin boards have driven wider tails generally or is it that wider tails have driven multi fin boards .
pin tails suit single fins more.

boards also got shorter with less rocker and the sailer moved back and that all suits wider tails too.

for typ east coast conditions wider tails work better Is my take. The better the conditions the narrower the tail and the more average the wider the tail.

I don't get the super narrow swallow/fish tail designs. Kinda feels like fashion at that point because there are other tail shapes I think work better on narrow tails, but I've not sailed every board.

So true, the area in the tail (and other factors as well of course) needs to suit the conditions.

I think my wave riding progressed the most with this board in this old (2016) video, with a squash tail, that wasn't too wide, so the board still turned amazing. Now this year in Cape Town a couple of good riders had their good-wave-boards with round pin tails already. Normally I have seen them with the swallow tails.

First: using the one foot off measure to get an ide of tail width is completely bogus. What matters is the width at the strap, and the ofo measure will move up and down the board in relation to the strap relativel tail length. And tail length, defined as the measure from the back strap back screw to the tail is one of the absolute most vital shape variables. That said with classic boards with long tails, is 20+ cms from back screw to tail, the actual shape of the tail makes very little difference. But when tails get shorter, down towards 10cm, the tail shape start to matter a lot (like they do also on surf boards, where you generally do stand quite far back). A swallow and a squash will fx behave differently, the swallow being a bit quicker rail to rail and generally more crisp in feel, riding a bit higher in the water. A squash will be smoother rail to rail, grip the water a little better and feel like it has more connection to the water. In general, more curves in the tail makes is smoother like described with the squash and more straghtness and edges give the reactiveness described above with the swallow. On short tails, which are inherently wider in the very tail, also the "corner" of the tail makes a difference. Rounding off the corner (like rounded squash vs square) or cutting of the corner (like jet tail vs swallow) noticeably takes away "power" from the tail making it easier to bury it in a hard turn, while loosing a bit of planing power.My personal boards have very short tails and I have experimented with quite radicaly and different types of tail, surf style, and this is how I learned al this.

Hey Ola,
When is the G7 Simmer flywave coming out?

I think in the autumn

Select to expand quote

Ola H said..
I think in the autumn

Thanks, Ola ! Looking forward to trying them!