But it turns out my day to day ride had a catastrophic delam, so fresh stick with a little story to it. When I realized I was board-less and an unbelievably good late season swell was heading to the North Shore, I entered panic mode and raided Kevin's garage looking for something that would work for me.
I pulled out this 8' 0" with chined rails and immediately wanted to ride it... shot Kev a text to let him know I was going to surf it and I got some pretty heavy scoldings, turns out he really, really, didn't get along with this board! So the story goes that Paul Midnich was nagging Kevin for months to let him do a tri-hull on one of his boards, from what I hear Paul was one of the pioneers of displacement hull surfboards back in the day. Anyway, Kev gives in, Paul goes to town on the bottom, and this is what I'v been surfing the last few weeks:
I have been riding similar bottoms for the last two seasons, so I immediately liked this sweet little board. I remember that the PSH hull ripper had a bit of a learning curve, and I think it was throwing Kevin for a bit of a loop. Kev likes his boards to work intuitively from the get go, so I can see why he wasn't into this board...
So far I've had it in near double over head but slopey, head high+ and hollow, and a few small days ranging from hollow-ish to kinda junk. I'm still playing with fins, it actually rode really nice with Jamie Mitchells in the front, Occy kinetic center fin.
Impression so far is that it's super ridiculously fast and the rail to rail feeling is absolutely buttery smooth. This is a bit wider than my last board, so it blew me away how good it felt in this regard. When my back foot was waaaaay back, it felt like I was surfing a narrow pin tail. Whenever we get waves again I'll try figure this thing out more...
Yep, that's 2013 that he made this one, didn't like it and it was banished to the dark dungeon of the garage for two years until I rescued her.
That's a sweet looking board. Nice surprise that was for the swell, any video?
I've got a similar shape from Blane and also ride it as a quad. Why did you add the nub?
I like the nubster fin when the waves are more powerful, this board is soooo fast so I feel like it gives me that little bit of extra stability and control. I even surfed it with a little trailer fin from the MR "super twin" fins, and it was pretty good but a bit more noticible drag. I think I'll put that center in when it's more hollow... still experimenting for sure. Back to the nub, I used it on my hull ripper too and on some short boards and it's amazing how much you really notice that tiny little thing. You wouldn't think it would be so easy to tell when it's in there. The last session I took the board out the waves were smaller and weak so I left the nub out and the board felt great.
The last 2 years I was on a 9'7" hull ripper, one of the first production versions for bigger surf and then my everyday board was an 8'10" Anakao from F-One. The F-one had similar rails to the hull ripper, but a bit more subtle. This tri-hull thing is kind of it's own animal, it's been super fun trying to figure it out, playing with fins, etc...
I wish I had some video, my poor gopro is full of water...if I end up getting some footage I will definitely post it up!