Author Topic: Nice Tail !!! What's your favorite ?  (Read 4525 times)

PDLSFR

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Nice Tail !!! What's your favorite ?
« on: October 27, 2016, 07:47:13 AM »
As SUP surfing has changed over the years, board design has gone from huge and wide, to short and narrow, and a variety  in between. One of the evolutions in design has been the ever changing preference of tail design. Different conditions might call for a different board with a different tail, but what is the best design or is there even one?

Here are a few from my quiver: Diamond, Round, Swallow, Unique (as Pat Rawson calls it):

Infinity RNB 8'2
Ron House 9'7
Ron House 10'7
Infinity New Deal 10'
Custom Infinity New Deal 10'
VEC 11'
Focus Bluefin 14'

Night Wing

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Re: Nice Tail !!! What's your favorite ?
« Reply #1 on: October 27, 2016, 08:25:24 AM »
I like the "chisel tail" of my SUP Sports Hammer. I think the parallel rails and chisel tail help my 8'11" Hammer in straight line tracking on flat water. I've only had my Hammer out in the surf at Galveston in some mushy waist high waves but with the chisel tail and coming out of turns, my sup doesn't seem to lose any speed as far as I can tell. Keep in mind I'm a newbie at sup so I don't have a lot of experience as I'm still learning so my comments will reflect that.
Blue Planet Duke: 10'5" x 32" x 4.5" @ 190 Liters (2 Dukes)
Sup Sports Hammer: 8'11" x 31" x 4" @ 140 Liters
SUP Sports One World: 11'1" x 30" x 4.5" @ 173 Liters
CJ Nelson Parallax: 9'3" x 23 1/2" x 3 3/16" @ 78.8 Liters (prone surfing longboard; Thunderbolt Technologies build in Red construction)

mrbig

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Re: Nice Tail !!! What's your favorite ?
« Reply #2 on: October 27, 2016, 12:29:45 PM »
That is a thumb tail on the Rawson!
Let it come to you..
SMIK 9'2" Hipster Mini Mal
SMIK 8'8" Short Mac Freo Rainbow Bridge
SMIK 8'4" Hipster Twin
King's 8'2" Accelerator SharkBoy

Bean

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Re: Nice Tail !!! What's your favorite ?
« Reply #3 on: October 27, 2016, 12:54:09 PM »
...but what is the best design or is there even one?

There really isn't one.  It depends on so many factors, the wave, the riding style, the board.  The most widely used is probably the squash tail. 

2Rivers

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Re: Nice Tail !!! What's your favorite ?
« Reply #4 on: October 27, 2016, 01:07:41 PM »
Where are the Asym tails? Like Ekstrom, Burch, etc. I really like those and the concept as well.
Swallow tail is my standard. I have three surfboards with that shape.
King's Type-S 14' | Soul Firestorm 8'9
ZRE Power Surge ZX4 80sq" | Kialoa Big Eddy
Larry Allison Dolphin Keel

supthecreek

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Re: Nice Tail !!! What's your favorite ?
« Reply #5 on: October 27, 2016, 01:13:48 PM »
All my prone surfing life I was partial to Rounded Diamond tails or Swallows.
I never met a Pintail that I liked at all. Ever.

However, in SUP, the Rounded Pin seems to work extremely well, with none of the "stickiness" that I experienced in prone boards....
in fact, most of my SUPs have been Rounded Pins.

My favorite?
Hands down.... the Speeed Tail, which has so many moving parts that you can only look at it as a whole, from the bottom - sidebites to tail (pic 1)
Seeetest tight carve, with no loss of speed.
I want it on ALL my boards  ;D ;D
funny... it's a Rounded Diamond  :)

Being the Sunova Mascot, I get to ride all of Bert's interesting tails, and they all work well on their designated design. (pic 2)

surfafrica

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Re: Nice Tail !!! What's your favorite ?
« Reply #6 on: October 27, 2016, 01:56:07 PM »
I'll throw out a couple curve balls.

50 years old, 5'7", 150 lbs, intermediate
Infinity RNB: 7'6 x 28, 95 L https://goo.gl/SqlWR4
Kronos LB: 8'10 x 26.5, 84 L https://goo.gl/4iQdps
Kronos Nano: 7'4 x 26, 81 L https://goo.gl/kAM8W6

PonoBill

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Re: Nice Tail !!! What's your favorite ?
« Reply #7 on: October 27, 2016, 03:26:14 PM »
The old line with shapers is "rocker makes boards work, tails make them sell."  Still, I'm a fan of the right tail for the right condition. I like a little wider tail in surf--gives straighter rails in the tail which helps my geezer balance and increases speed if the rail is buried and the board is high on the wave. I like pintails for downwind--again, geezer balance. Get smacked from behind with a pin and it's not so bad. Also helps steering from the tail. I like square tails on shorter flatwater boards--straighter rails, easier balance for a skinny board and they trim better (more tail volume), unless it's a super long unlimited, then a pin is nice for max speed, or a square tail is fine for unlimiteds that are actually 14' with an eight foot schnozz.
Foote 10'4X34", SIC 17.5 V1 hollow and an EPS one in Hood River. Foote 9'0" x 31", L41 8'8", 18' Speedboard, etc. etc.

exiled

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Re: Nice Tail !!! What's your favorite ?
« Reply #8 on: October 27, 2016, 03:34:39 PM »
I think Ive liked diamond tails the best out of all the ones Ive tried. First on the old C4 SubVector and now on the Sunova Speeed. Mostly I think they just give me the right amount of real estate back there.

southwesterly

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Re: Nice Tail !!! What's your favorite ?
« Reply #9 on: October 27, 2016, 03:42:02 PM »
 I've always been a fan of a bigger ass end.

Off-Shore

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Re: Nice Tail !!! What's your favorite ?
« Reply #10 on: October 27, 2016, 05:08:56 PM »
Back in my windsurfing days, I always wanted one of these.... I have never seen an asymmetric SUP... Can't think where you would need one... but my these are pretty tails...

I can remember Duncan Coombs, arriving at the Scottish Tiree Wave Classic (one of the best events in Europe IMHO at the time) in the 1980s fresh from Maui with not one, but two asymmetries, one for the left and one for the right. My mates and I were just blown away by them.

Image taken from the 1984 Windsurfing Funboard Handbook
« Last Edit: October 27, 2016, 05:18:21 PM by Off-Shore »
SB 9' x 33' x 4.1" - RPC 9'8" iSUP - SB All-Star 12'6" - Blue Planet Bump Rider 14 - SB Ace 14 x 27 - RedAir 14' Elite Race - SIC Bullet 14v1 TWC - SICMaui F16v3 Custom

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/HksupaHk_SUP_and_Downwinding

DavidJohn

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Re: Nice Tail !!! What's your favorite ?
« Reply #11 on: October 27, 2016, 07:02:07 PM »
Back in my windsurfing days, I always wanted one of these.... I have never seen an asymmetric SUP... Can't think where you would need one... but my these are pretty tails...

I can remember Duncan Coombs, arriving at the Scottish Tiree Wave Classic (one of the best events in Europe IMHO at the time) in the 1980s fresh from Maui with not one, but two asymmetries, one for the left and one for the right. My mates and I were just blown away by them.

Image taken from the 1984 Windsurfing Funboard Handbook

I've had more than a dozen different Asym's and love them.. I'm in the process of restoring one of my favorites right now (to hang on the wall) and they would work anywhere that's a right-hander or you could make one for a lefthand break.. I've seen a few pics of Asym sup's so they are out there..

TallDude

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Re: Nice Tail !!! What's your favorite ?
« Reply #12 on: October 27, 2016, 07:56:50 PM »
Whisk oil, soy sauce, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, lemon peel, and garlic.
It's not overhead to me!
8'8" L-41 ST and a whole pile of boards I rarely use.

Night Wing

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Re: Nice Tail !!! What's your favorite ?
« Reply #13 on: October 27, 2016, 08:53:52 PM »
Whisk oil, soy sauce, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, lemon peel, and garlic.

From your comments and photo, I really like your kind of tail since it is one of my favorite tails too.  ;)
Blue Planet Duke: 10'5" x 32" x 4.5" @ 190 Liters (2 Dukes)
Sup Sports Hammer: 8'11" x 31" x 4" @ 140 Liters
SUP Sports One World: 11'1" x 30" x 4.5" @ 173 Liters
CJ Nelson Parallax: 9'3" x 23 1/2" x 3 3/16" @ 78.8 Liters (prone surfing longboard; Thunderbolt Technologies build in Red construction)

PonoBill

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Re: Nice Tail !!! What's your favorite ?
« Reply #14 on: October 27, 2016, 09:28:30 PM »
Back in my windsurfing days, I always wanted one of these.... I have never seen an asymmetric SUP... Can't think where you would need one... but my these are pretty tails...

I can remember Duncan Coombs, arriving at the Scottish Tiree Wave Classic (one of the best events in Europe IMHO at the time) in the 1980s fresh from Maui with not one, but two asymmetries, one for the left and one for the right. My mates and I were just blown away by them.

Image taken from the 1984 Windsurfing Funboard Handbook

Northwest can opener. Had a few, also tinkler tail. All more trouble than they were worth and relegated to the dustbin--or a few fences in Rowena and Maui. Modern boards are pretty straightforward. Funny how that worls.
Foote 10'4X34", SIC 17.5 V1 hollow and an EPS one in Hood River. Foote 9'0" x 31", L41 8'8", 18' Speedboard, etc. etc.

 


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