Session 7171

WavLOG

Day 171
Other Side of the Track

Another Day in Paradise...

As I promised on my last WavLOG, this morning, I did drive south, walked half a mile and go under the wooden railroad trestle, and surfed good two hours.

Probably the condition was nothing to write home about by the people who frequent here, but the it was sunny, no winds, and "A"s were popping here and there with up to my shoulder level.

I took out my Takayama Egg 7'2 today (though F4 would have worked just as well), and caught many waves, almost all of which were the kind that you can see the wave walling up next to you, and take off was not too hard either. What really great, especially compared to yesterday, was the quality of the break. Waves just broke more ideally. The swells came in slowly and clearly and also grew slowly and very consistently at nearly the same spot. All I had to do was to go there and just wait for the wave to come, and everything came and shaped as predicted at the pace I could handle. This is usually not the case with, say, surfing at Montara where everything happens so much faster and stronger and ends fast too, so there I would be much more in haste and also exhausting to ride.

On Sunday, Luke asked me whether I feel any differences between the F4 board and others, and I was thinking about it since then, so I will try to answer this in the way that I am experiencing it.

One thing that is going with this board is the F4 board is one of more stable short boards I have. Ever since I got it, I have been noticing that this board was noticeably easy to get up than other short boards. This is likely that the I am more used to this board.

Once up on the wave, the speed feel is good and I can challenge myself with turning more aggressively. I am definitely under-skilled for the board's potential, but anything I tried so far, the board responded as I would expect, and the response was very positive and quick. One of the boards I owned before caused the tail to become very unstable under some speed, drifting left and right. This board has never done that. The board also rarely slip out of my feet when I get up on it.

Comparing the F4 to the Egg that I used today, I am presently surfing the Egg with a single-fin configuration with a big center fin only (as Luke puts it "A Soul Surfing Board") This board is a breeze to take-off with and speed is good. Even it is 7'2 I can and have to walk towards the nose when needed and overall it really rides like a long board; really smooth rides and really likes to be turned on a large radius on bigger waves. But it definitely is harder to turn compared to the F4. For example, let's say that I just did a bottom turn and now I am going up on the wave and when the wave unexpectedly decides to close. If I was on the F4, turning on the top against the wave and cutting back is a bit easier task. I think this is largely the skill issue with myself as I have seen many long boarders can do some amazingly fast turns.

Please share your experiences with different boards!