Post a picture of yourself surfing.

The swell that ate yellow board!

 

Looks like a more of a paddle out

 

My avatar, somewhere in Costa Rica.
Below, the poster board for the exhibit at the Florida Surf Museum several years ago as we were setting up (me in the poster board pic, somewhere in Puerto Rico). I curated the showing.

 

Last week in Ocean City Maryland have fun on some rippable ones:



Ocean City Maryland Last winter:



El Salvador:

 

Yeah mitchel! I always thought you were way older

 

I'm just gonna let that one sit!

By the way that pic of you slotted in AC is a gem.

 

That backside in El Salvador is majestic.

 

Goofy footer...

 

What size paipo is that? I see you like Viper fins, too.

Took the mat out in some slow 2 footers today. What a trip...

 

My standard length is 50 inches, 19-7/8 to 20-1/2 inches wide, 2 to 2-1/2 inches thick. The board I am pictured in the larger wave is 50x20x2-3/8, shown below, the Checkered RPMs that Austin made me (subsequent one were 50 x 19-7/8 x 2, which I "parked" at some favorite tropical reef breaks. The Orange Matter was the first paipo ever built by Austin, the "baseline" paipo he made several hundred of, 50 x 20-1/2 x 2-1/2.

Blondie overlooking the Checkered RPM and Orange Matter.


Checkered RPM some place in Puerto Rico.


Malcolm Campbell made this Paipo Bonzer to my basic spec, 50 x 20-3/8 x 1-7/8. He and Austin are top of the shelf shapers in my book. This board made for a Costa Rica reef/point break that I also use in Hawaii and some Calif. breaks.


I was a long time user of Churchill Fins made with the soft rubber flexi-blade compound. Then for a dozen or so years, the Vipers, Orange Dot and Yellow Dot, but they have narrow foot pockets and it is hard to wear much rubber (fin socks). I moved up to the Yellow dots because the Orange dots lost memory over time and tropical weather broke down the stiffness (so a stiff Yellow became more like a flexi Orange). My go-to swim fins now are the DaFins, nice foot pockets and can go up from 1mm to 4 mm in the same size fin. The Vipers are really nice at extending one's planning surface well beyond the board's 50 inches due to the blades' very straight surface shape (whereas the DaFins have more curvature and create more drag). But, overall, the DaFins are my number one choice these days.

 

2018 LA , NJ

 

User error on the 2 x post

 

I pretty much went through a similar evolution in fins... Churchills for many years, then went to the yellow dot Vipers. I mostly use them for bodysurfing but now also for mat riding. And I agree... they help you plane and help provide good steerage.

I'm learning that the mat is a whole other animal... definitely a learning curve to be able to optimize the design and adjust pressure and rocker. At this point, I'm learning how the thing works pretty much by accident. I'll squeeze and pull and bend the thing just to see what happens, and when you do something right... man... the thing just FLIES. You can come from behind a crumbling section, out of the whitewater, and project out onto the open face... literally overtaking the wave. I imagine it's similar on a paipo.

 

Mats represent too much learning needed for mastering for an old guy like me! Yes, sometimes I will turn up into the whitewater and then back down for a burst of speed and project to the open face (board skegs help in that).