there are some epic wipeouts in here. his backside tube riding is RI-DIC-U-LOUS. that butt drag-railgrab-bottom turn thing that he does is incredible. he has that wave so dialed in it's crazy.
Yeah, that is NEVER good. I didnt even notice that the first time I watched it. just breath deep go limp and hope for the best.
Good stuff, and it is interesting to see how the thruster methodology has resulted in a different way of surfing the board compared with what Gerry would have done.
"The beauty of those boards with the wide point forward, flat deck... fat... was that you didn't do much of anything... (You try) not try to pump the board in the tube like you do now. Just straight trim it. Just let the board do everything." Sounds very similar to your boards, Roy...
Certainly some similarities in the general way they move, Gerry's board is narrower and thicker than what I'm doing currently. My boards were originally based on 70's singles and the first ones I built were singles around 7'5" and only 18" wide, they were much thinner though at 1.5" . Most of my boards are still relatively thin, my 12'9" 'Makaha' for example is only 2" thick. Instead of trying to make improvements by going for a thruster setup, over the last 20 years we've made other changes, in fact I made lots of changes with the very first board. Turning while in trim is what it's all about for me, that includes an element of pumping. Pumping is essentially just weighting and unweighting while turning. It looks a little different on a WP forward single as the unweighting happens with a forward trim so it has a more sinuous trimming look than with the thruster. There's more to say but I don't want to turn this into a thread about my boards. Anyway Jamie is doing the 'drop like a stone' thing, with a low riding position, weight forward, straight down technique, we didn't see so much of that in the 70's.
It's not talent I'm talking about as it's a given with Jamie or Gerry. It's mainly a different technique on the drop which seems to have been learned over the last decade or so on shorter thrusters. Pretty interesting seeing it applied to a 7'6" single fin.
Hmm yeah I prefer the 70's way but there's no doubt that the multi fins own it technically. I'd like to see the Gerry board with a different fin, and a 4" tunnel behind the fin. Also the pintailed version, rather than the roundtail. Here's a balsa 7' by 18" from '94 shown with Rich in Japan, it's a great little tube slider.
As stated above, the person in the picture is named Rich, if you think about it for a while you might be able to figure out that therefore the picture is not of Roy. I hope that helps, and the answer is no, we are not related.
I think the technique aspect of this thread is simple. Thrusters in general, along with the progressions of overall rails and board designs just allow surfers to react quickly and get into the most critical section of the wave immediately. You can tweak your ankles and grab rail on a more evened out thurster setup and be snug on the wave while the barrel starts to pitch, where on the single fins and larger forward kind of designed, you have to commit to your line from the jump, get out in front, really let out a larger turning radius and try and get back into that critical position... Two different styles for sure. I like the overall fluid appearance of the the "Gerry Board" but again, there is a reason why the guys on all the big waves, at Pipe and anywhere else are all riding thrusters (for the most part) in competition etc. Its just an "easier" way. Still very difficult, but we all know that you can late drop in sideways on these smaller thurster boards, catch the face and still make the drop and be in a critical position. And in places like Pipe, its not about getting covered up, its about getting in fast, staying in deep and having the ability to change your line and regain you speed accordingly when the exit opportunity presents itself. Cool way to page homage for sure, but on a critical day, trying to get the wave of the winter, those guys arent gonna be on a Gerry board.
