The Angst Of The Order

well to be honest you have so many boards at your disposal already I would think that you have almost every situation covered - although there is aways room for an improvement across the quiver. I normally find that when I get the custom in my hands that I wish it was slightly different. Thats one of the reasons I normally buy off the rack these days if I see something I want. Takes the post purchase doubts away I am sure your board will be fine.

Yep I reckon your right Drip...I think maybe it's what we have in our mind as a custom and the result is the shapers interpretation of what we tell them.

Went to pick up a custom once and when I saw it I thought..WTF is that..but then grew to love it

I went through a lot of boards in my younger days. Never thought so much about the boards, but the waves I was riding. Didn't really have anywhere near the variety of board shapes in the 80's like you have today. Not that I was aware of anyway. Basically just bought a new board when I snapped one which would usually be within a year...then I got a Rick Jackovich Alloy Joy & surfed that for about 15 years.

Other than having one main board & a 6'8 - 6'11 gun. I've only had more than a couple of boards the last few years. I guess some guys mid life crisis is like buying a Harley or a sports car. Mine has been surfboards. So I now have 9 & have bought & sold about 5 where as before I had them till death (snapped). Two of those boards I specifically did not like at all.

The Firewire Bouez board was fully not suited to my local waves, way too much rocker. Made me realize I like flat rocker with late kick in the nose & tail rocker but flat through the middle...the other board was a short narrow 666, basically not worth having coz I'd rather surf anything else given the conditions it would go well in.

I've still got that 6'6". It's an old Katana. Ridiculously narrow, thin and rockered, but it surfed everything from waist to triple overhead. Then I would pull a 7'2".

I think most surfers can get by with a small, medium and big wave board. But the thing is there are so many different types of big wave boards, small wave boards and, you guessed it, medium wave boards. I can be a bit like Elvis in a restaurant.

We were younger/fitter & generally up against less opposition. Used to be just goat boats & LB riders we had to worry about. Although the goat boats died off through the 90's & LB's couldn't sit as deep as a SB on a lot of waves...but yeah, now you have opposition in numbers, fun boards, more rockered/refined LB's & 666'ers...its like you have to adapt if you want a wave lol. These days I'm choosing to use a board, not only on the waves but the type of crowd. Not that I'm complaining though, I'm loving the shorter/wider revolution.

Hey I don't wanna derail a good thread, but I could probably nail down to 4 boards for just about all conditions with a board name. Couldn't do that before hey, naming a board by name...it was just shaper & size. Never really thought much about width, but didn't like a board if it looked chunky. I'd pretty much just chase a board by length without giving much thought to anything else other than if I liked the look of it.

The Alloy Joy I rode for so long & still have is 6'8 x 18.5 x 2.5...looks so narrow to me now, doubt I'll ever go below 19.75 again

I bet with my head not my heart. Look if you are late to the party you can still get Oz to win by less than 12.5 points for $3.60 which seems pretty fair to me. If that was on the ABs I would be selling my Grandma and backing up the truck

I've got a 6'4 which is 21.75 wide. I've had problems with it in waves over head & a 1/2 where my feet havn't been able to stop the board flipping out on bottom turns coz of the pressure on the rail. And that was in clean Indo conditions. Personally I wouldn't go wider than 20.5 for bigger waves. Maybe 20.75 tops if the waves aren't too steep & I have a nice channel to paddle out through negating the need to duck dive.

I never realised Austria and wa have the same wave types.


drip your talking about waves we just don't have in queensland.

nor do I really want

well not all the time. its seems like every surf you have is semi life threatening