New Board- Mistake or not?

[wallysurfr]

Thanks for the info on thrusters. I thought it was pretty well known (at least around monmouth county) that thrusters are thin short boards with a good amount of rocker and a narrower deck that incorporated the 3 fins? Not sure, I just have never heard anyone call a funshape a thruster around here.

Nice board though, looks nice and glossy.

[LBCrew]

I'm not into midlengths... but it's not a mistake to buy it if you like it. The price was certainly affordable enough.

[beachbreak]

if you have to ask,you should not have bought it.
buy a board you really love and won't question

[Ray F.]

i think only you can be the judge of it it a mistake or not! got to ride her first, and see how she feels relative to your style!

Exactly! I've bought quite a few boards in my day and I can count plenty of times I thought a popular board was a dog and an unlikely board was magic. This just recently happened to me again.

Give it a whirl & be honest with yourself. If you don't like it, get rid of it. Life's too short for a mismatched board.

[surfde]

It looks like a pretty fun board and im sure that if you dont like it you can sell it for $250 or $200 at the end of the summer. I personally wouldn't buy it but the longest board ill ride is a 7'0"

[njsurfer42]

Thanks for the info on thrusters. I thought it was pretty well known (at least around monmouth county) that thrusters are thin short boards with a good amount of rocker and a narrower deck that incorporated the 3 fins?

a common misconception. a thruster is any board w/ 3 fins of roughly equal size. "thruster" is the fin set up, not the shape of the board (like "egg" or "fish" would be).


aside from that, i would have chimed in that this board was a mistake. i have no use for the tuflite/pop-out garbage. IMO, you basically dropped $350 on a pool toy. those things don't handle waves w/ any kind of texture well at all. they get that weird "chatter" going when there's chop.
a guy w/ a mid-length pop-out screams KOOK! to me.

[MDSurfer]

Well, my first pop-out was a 9'0" Royal Hawaiian by Dextra back in 1964 that I bought from Turco's Surf and Sport in Wildwood, so I guess I've come full circle. That board was a real dog, but it taught me to surf, so it's all good.

In the interim, I was a part of the short board revolution in the late sixties to early seventies moving from a 9'4" Weber Performer, to an 8'6" Weber Mini (their term, not mine), to a 7' Weber Ski, to a Weber 6'0 PIG (a shorter version of this board's outline), to a series of 6' boards from Weber, Nectar, Plastic Fantastic, a Nomad 7'3" Mini Gun tailor made for El Salvador and an Eaton that my son has taken over. When Jon Ashton had his shop in West OC I made the move longer, and I haven't been disappointed as far as scoring my share of waves. After I broke that Ashton in half and put it back together three times I had Jon make me a new one, but Jon told me, "I don't make boards like that anymore." My loss. The new 9' board he made me was a nice cruiser, but it didn't handle like his first single fin show board.

Now I'm inclined to explore shorter, hence this new board. My 7'3" Channin thruster is getting kind of spongy and it's wafer thin, but since I've added a few lbs. in the last 46 years, along with subsequent loss of flexibility, I think I'm destined to stay somewhat longer. Besides, 9 times out of 10, it's not the board that counts as much as the rider. And that's 46 years of surfing experience.

I'm not worried about my selection in the least or I wouldn't have plopped down the cash, but I was just curious to see what others might think of it. What are other 60 year olds out there surfing in your area? Some of my friends are still in the 6' -7' zone, but fewer of them every year. Thanks for all the feedback by the way. It's fascinating.

[njsurfer42]

What are other 60 year olds out there surfing in your area? Some of my friends are still in the 6' -7' zone, but fewer of them every year.

glad you're still at it. & hey, if you're happy w/ your choice, then what does the opinion of some guy in nj matter? & that's 20+ years of surfing/ocean experience talking...at age 29.
my father just turned 64 last month & still rides locally hand-shaped shortboards (larger than they used to be, granted. they're in the 6'6"-7'0" range now), either from brian wynn or scott busby, as he splits time between nj & buxton. having grown up surfing oc, nj during the mid-late 60's, attending grad school in hawaii in the 70's, & judging asp & nssa contests in the 80's, he passed on a deep & abiding appreciation of the history of the sport & that is not something i can easily discard. my view of the matter, regardless of the evolution of the shape in question, is that cheap, poorly made pop-outs tear away some small portion of the soul of surfing & what the "culture" of surfing is/has been all about.
& as i understand it, channin isn't even really a board company anymore. they went out of business, then the logo/label was bought & the brand resurrected w/ overseas production. essentially, whoever owns the channin logo is cashing in on the nostalgia & past reputation of the brand. same w/ canyon. it's bs to me.

[GoodVibes]

The dudes 60 and hes still surfing.Rock on brother.

[spongedude]

What are other 60 year olds out there surfing in your area? Some of my friends are still in the 6' -7' zone, but fewer of them every year.

a lot of the older guys out here ride the bigger boards (7+) esp since the surf in this area tends to be smallish (2-5ft) (and the guys tend to be biggish) more often than not. brands range among the usual suspects, but bruce jones http://www.brucejones.com has a shop here a mile up the road in sunset beach and he's there to make sure one gets the right fit.

is the "popout" likely to be durable or is it a throwaway?