Long Boarders: Kick me some knowledge please

BTW: After getting some decent juice finally, I took the new log out again. Before I went, I moved the 9" Squirrel fin from the center position, all the way forward. It was freaking awesome. It was nice a loose, I was hitting bottom turns, getting my pump on, hitting massive floaters and even went off the lip a few times, shortboard style. I had a freaking blast. It is AMAZING how much a 2 inch slide of the center fin changes everything. Not to mention that my last session was in waist high slop with no power, but man, the thing handled COMPLETELY different. Couldn't get my noseride on yesterday. I actually leashed up with a shortboard leash because of the drift and the 30MPH sideshore. There were tons of people in the water and I knew I would catch flack from the lifeguards if I wasn't careful. They were cool enough to let me surf all through their swim zones... I wish I could have tried to get my toes off the nose to see how the response was from the center fin and tail... cause in the post, some guys mentioned that putting the fin all the way back promotes more stability while you are on the nose.

But as far as general performance on the LB, the squirrel moved up front let a brother get loose. I was stoked.

P.S. The leash did come in handy, cause there were about 3-4 waves that I had to bail on, mid ride, screaming down the face because these swimmers were just not paying attention and even though I could have avoided them, I didn't want to cut it close and piss of the guards that were giving me generous treatment. Everytime I would just drop off the side and grab the board with my arms with no problem, but there was one or 2 waves on the inside that I may have gotten a little too close for comfort without the leash.

 

Side bites still in... Really helped I think, cause some of the drops were pretty sketchy... Those steep ones, where the nose is pearling a bit paddling in cause of the steep angle, but the tank is still moving underwater so you pull up a tad and just adjust a second, try and take a high line, but when I would plop down into the flats, I was glad I had the side bites for a little added stability.... I also felt that the side bites helped going off the lip some too. Could be in my head, but I am plenty stoked on the side bites with the fin up. My friend kept saying, I can't believe you aren't on your fish or disco. I was like man, trust me, a day like this is going to be epic on a tank. And it was. I would have been pumping all over the place, floating crazy walls. I was just digging that feeling, when you are on the longboard and you see that section in front of you, where on a SB the thing would close out ahead of you, but I would just trust my line, walk up a bit towards the front and next thing you know I was flying right past the section, locked in the face the whole time...

I will give it to LBs in that regard, I had that SB mentality but was like screw it, im not going to straighten out, im gonna try and hold my line and it powered through every time.

 

Nice. I bet it was awesome down there. Sounds like you guys didn't have the local wind and weather issues we had, but you were still getting the same juice.

 

Will do... Next time its a little cleaner, I will do so. Looking like tomorrow morning is like 2.5@11 or something like that with light winds and a noon high tide. I go in at noon on Tuesdays, so that will be perfect. If I get out around 9am, there should be enough tide to start seeing some action. Seems like that will be the perfect time to see whats up with the single... Looked at it at lunch today. There is still some size, but its ugly out there. Just choppy with not much going for it... You can still see it's getting over the sickness from all that wind. If it cleans up, I will definitely pop the side bites.